A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: Maharaj often offered pointers that seemed contradictory but which were actually only (A) “level appropriate” - offering an applicable pointer to a seeker at one point on the “path” but a totally different pointer to a seeker at a different point on the “path” - or (B) paradoxical, which many non-dual pointers are.
What he did not offer – which is happening among Big Name Teachers nowadays - was a blending of “non-dual-like” pointers along with relative concepts that give their messages a popular appeal. “Popular” pays, but truth does not, and would-be-rich snake oil salesmen have always known that.
Therefore, who among the non-Realized masses wants to hear, “Power, of the type that you desire and to which the masses are addicted, is a false, dreamed up concept and is not real at all” as opposed to “I know the way that you can have unlimited power, NOW, and then always have it available to use to your benefit”?
What person among the non-Realized masses wants to hear that “your concern with elevating your status and your concern with image and your self-absorption are the scourge of humanity and the relative existence” instead of “I can show you how to be a great success and how to attain the financial prosperity that you desire and deserve”?
Who among the non-Realized masses wants to hear, “All of your beliefs about ‘self’ and ‘Self” are illusions” as opposed to “You are a ‘Very Special Variety of Self’”?
Who among the non-Realized masses wants to hear that “Your relative desires will prove to be a relative curse on your relative existence” as opposed to “I will help you fulfill your every desire and achieve everything you wish to achieve”?
See, the point is that a message which attracts non-Realized persons like moths to flames, and which is “popular” among non-Realized persons, should make it immediately clear that something is inherently and fundamentally wrong with that message. It would have been like getting to know Adolf Hitler in the 1940’s and his saying, “You know, now that I’ve gotten to know you, I like the way you think and talk and behave, and I have really come to admire you more than anyone I know.”
The point is, if an ass were to say, “You are really an ass,” then that would be a sure sign that you’re “on the right track.” If an ass were to say, “I really think you’re spot on and a wonderful person,” it would be time for you to reevaluate the ways that you are thinking and talking and behaving. That should be a major red flag. Something is definitely way out of whack. It's just like in algebra: "a negative" x "a negative" = "a positive."
And for someone high up a fictional, imaginary hierarchy to invite you to climb to the top and join him or her should be clear evidence to one seeking via a non-dual method that the seeker should turn and run like the wind from one offering so hypocritical and fraudulent a message.
Maharaj never sought notoriety or to be “popular.” Quite the opposite, and when the focus of his later talks shifted, he became – and remains in some quarters – the most unpopular carrier of the non-dual message.
Whatever “popularity” he may have had early on dissolved in many cases as he shifted his perspective of the Ultimate Medicine from being “A Religious Medicine” or “A Spiritual Medicine”; as he advised seekers to stop reading the transcripts collected in "I AM THAT" and ignore all of his early talks that were peppered with religious and spiritual elements; and as he taught that it is “A Psychological Medicine” that is needed by the masses to treat the widespread Ultimate Sickness.
Moreover, Maharaj’s “telling it like it is” approach and teaching style – the same one used here, some say – assured that his methods would trigger the recalling of an old adage, “The Truth may set you free, but it is going to piss you off first.”
His approach was in direct opposition to the style of the Big Name Teachers nowadays who incorporate a blending of (a) some “non-dual-like” pointers with (2) far more talk involving relative topics which reinforce and cater to the non-Realized masses’ relative desires to move farther up hierarchies themselves and to join at the top those who have already ascended on the hierarchies of supposed power and control;
to join with those who would rise on a status-and-enhanced-image hierarchy; to join with those who prefer a hierarchy made up of Spiritual Giants and a hierarchy currently occupied by “The Top Ten Most Spiritual People on the Planet”; or who desire to join those on a financial hierarchy of millionaires and billionaires and multi-billionaires of the type “occupied” by so many of the Big Name Teachers.
What an absurd irony, is it not, that so many of the Big Name Teachers (whom Maharaj warned seekers to avoid) are formulating hierarchies; are relishing their supposedly-higher place on hierarchies; and are inviting their audiences and readers to join them at the higher end of all sorts of hierarchies.
So what would be Maharaj’s take on such concepts as those listed yesterday that are offered by the Big Name Teachers who link their names with non-duality? Again, all of Maharaj’s pointers were “level appropriate.”
He might offer a seeker at the third of seven steps one pointer but a totally different pointer to someone at the fifth of seven steps; so, he might mention “power” to one early on, but to one farther along the “path,” he made clear that “power” is a product of ego-assumption and egotism and deception. Overall, though, the one familiar with the content of all of his talks - but especially with the later ones - would know his take on the following:
Regarding “Power,” “Attaining Power,” “The Power of Now,” “The Power of Intention,” and “The Power of Words”:
[“Power” is a concept, man-made and dreamed up, totally useless in the long haul. Maharaj: “To imagine that some little thing - food, sex, power, fame - will make you happy is to deceive oneself” and "If you expect any benefits from your search - material, mental or spiritual - you have missed the point. Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false."]
Regarding “10 Secrets for Success,” “Getting What You Want,” “The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire,” “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams":
[“Success? Really? Fulfilling dreams? Really? Maharaj: “Success” only involves “the steady resistance against the unnecessary,” (not seeking and attaining the unnecessary) and “All ambitions are for the sake of the ‘I am’” and, again: "If you expect any benefits from your search - material, mental or spiritual - you have missed the point” and “Stay without ambition, without the least desire.” As for one’s “dreams” about success and then fulfillment of dreams, even “the very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory,” much less staying in the dream; and “As long as you give reality to dreams, you are their slave.”]
More on “desire”: “Desires are just waves in the mind. You know a wave when you see one. A desire is just a thing among many. I feel no urge to satisfy it, no action needs be taken on it. Freedom from desire means this: the compulsion to satisfy is absent” and “All desires must be given up, because by desiring you take the shape of your desires. When no desires remain, you revert to your natural state” and “Desire is merely the fixation of the mind on an idea” and “Desirelessness is the highest bliss,” and if you “pursue any desire, it will always give you trouble.”
Regarding “Assuring Eternal Life”:
[Maharaj: “You can do nothing. What time has brought about, time will take away” and “You are unborn” and you cannot be born again because you were not even born once. Maharaj made clear that energy and matter – not life – are the eternals.]
As for someone having an “Ageless Body” and “Timeless Mind”:
[“I am neither the body, nor the mind, nor the mental faculties. I am beyond all these” and “You are neither the body nor in the body — there is no such thing as body” and “Self-identification with the body may be good for an infant, but true growing up depends on getting the body out of the way. Normally, one should outgrow body-based desires early in life” and “When you know that you are neither body nor mind, you will not be swayed by them” and “Whatever is conceived by the mind must be false . . . .” and “Desire for embodied existence is the root cause of trouble” and “The body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long. A full life is better than a long life.”]
On “Advancing Your Spirit”:
[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” and “There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding” and “Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end” and “There is no progress” and “Whatever you have tried to understand during your spiritual search will prove false.”]
and
On “The Infinite Self”
[Maharaj: “I take my stand in the original state where I was not aware that I am.”]
Thus, his message on this subject: You take yourself to be a spiritual giant. I am a spiritual pygmy and “avoid Big Name Teachers” and “In this 'spiritual hierarchy,' from the grossest to the subtlest, you are the subtlest.”
The invitation is to put any teacher to the test before you decide to follow. Ask objectively: “Is this person advocating hierarchies?” If so, that is the very antithesis – the exact opposite - of the non-dual message. Move on. Move away.
Best regards as you move away from hierarchies and detach from those who dream them up and try to maintain them.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
26 August 2014
What he did not offer – which is happening among Big Name Teachers nowadays - was a blending of “non-dual-like” pointers along with relative concepts that give their messages a popular appeal. “Popular” pays, but truth does not, and would-be-rich snake oil salesmen have always known that.
Therefore, who among the non-Realized masses wants to hear, “Power, of the type that you desire and to which the masses are addicted, is a false, dreamed up concept and is not real at all” as opposed to “I know the way that you can have unlimited power, NOW, and then always have it available to use to your benefit”?
What person among the non-Realized masses wants to hear that “your concern with elevating your status and your concern with image and your self-absorption are the scourge of humanity and the relative existence” instead of “I can show you how to be a great success and how to attain the financial prosperity that you desire and deserve”?
Who among the non-Realized masses wants to hear, “All of your beliefs about ‘self’ and ‘Self” are illusions” as opposed to “You are a ‘Very Special Variety of Self’”?
Who among the non-Realized masses wants to hear that “Your relative desires will prove to be a relative curse on your relative existence” as opposed to “I will help you fulfill your every desire and achieve everything you wish to achieve”?
See, the point is that a message which attracts non-Realized persons like moths to flames, and which is “popular” among non-Realized persons, should make it immediately clear that something is inherently and fundamentally wrong with that message. It would have been like getting to know Adolf Hitler in the 1940’s and his saying, “You know, now that I’ve gotten to know you, I like the way you think and talk and behave, and I have really come to admire you more than anyone I know.”
The point is, if an ass were to say, “You are really an ass,” then that would be a sure sign that you’re “on the right track.” If an ass were to say, “I really think you’re spot on and a wonderful person,” it would be time for you to reevaluate the ways that you are thinking and talking and behaving. That should be a major red flag. Something is definitely way out of whack. It's just like in algebra: "a negative" x "a negative" = "a positive."
And for someone high up a fictional, imaginary hierarchy to invite you to climb to the top and join him or her should be clear evidence to one seeking via a non-dual method that the seeker should turn and run like the wind from one offering so hypocritical and fraudulent a message.
Maharaj never sought notoriety or to be “popular.” Quite the opposite, and when the focus of his later talks shifted, he became – and remains in some quarters – the most unpopular carrier of the non-dual message.
Whatever “popularity” he may have had early on dissolved in many cases as he shifted his perspective of the Ultimate Medicine from being “A Religious Medicine” or “A Spiritual Medicine”; as he advised seekers to stop reading the transcripts collected in "I AM THAT" and ignore all of his early talks that were peppered with religious and spiritual elements; and as he taught that it is “A Psychological Medicine” that is needed by the masses to treat the widespread Ultimate Sickness.
Moreover, Maharaj’s “telling it like it is” approach and teaching style – the same one used here, some say – assured that his methods would trigger the recalling of an old adage, “The Truth may set you free, but it is going to piss you off first.”
His approach was in direct opposition to the style of the Big Name Teachers nowadays who incorporate a blending of (a) some “non-dual-like” pointers with (2) far more talk involving relative topics which reinforce and cater to the non-Realized masses’ relative desires to move farther up hierarchies themselves and to join at the top those who have already ascended on the hierarchies of supposed power and control;
to join with those who would rise on a status-and-enhanced-image hierarchy; to join with those who prefer a hierarchy made up of Spiritual Giants and a hierarchy currently occupied by “The Top Ten Most Spiritual People on the Planet”; or who desire to join those on a financial hierarchy of millionaires and billionaires and multi-billionaires of the type “occupied” by so many of the Big Name Teachers.
What an absurd irony, is it not, that so many of the Big Name Teachers (whom Maharaj warned seekers to avoid) are formulating hierarchies; are relishing their supposedly-higher place on hierarchies; and are inviting their audiences and readers to join them at the higher end of all sorts of hierarchies.
So what would be Maharaj’s take on such concepts as those listed yesterday that are offered by the Big Name Teachers who link their names with non-duality? Again, all of Maharaj’s pointers were “level appropriate.”
He might offer a seeker at the third of seven steps one pointer but a totally different pointer to someone at the fifth of seven steps; so, he might mention “power” to one early on, but to one farther along the “path,” he made clear that “power” is a product of ego-assumption and egotism and deception. Overall, though, the one familiar with the content of all of his talks - but especially with the later ones - would know his take on the following:
Regarding “Power,” “Attaining Power,” “The Power of Now,” “The Power of Intention,” and “The Power of Words”:
[“Power” is a concept, man-made and dreamed up, totally useless in the long haul. Maharaj: “To imagine that some little thing - food, sex, power, fame - will make you happy is to deceive oneself” and "If you expect any benefits from your search - material, mental or spiritual - you have missed the point. Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false."]
Regarding “10 Secrets for Success,” “Getting What You Want,” “The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire,” “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams":
[“Success? Really? Fulfilling dreams? Really? Maharaj: “Success” only involves “the steady resistance against the unnecessary,” (not seeking and attaining the unnecessary) and “All ambitions are for the sake of the ‘I am’” and, again: "If you expect any benefits from your search - material, mental or spiritual - you have missed the point” and “Stay without ambition, without the least desire.” As for one’s “dreams” about success and then fulfillment of dreams, even “the very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory,” much less staying in the dream; and “As long as you give reality to dreams, you are their slave.”]
More on “desire”: “Desires are just waves in the mind. You know a wave when you see one. A desire is just a thing among many. I feel no urge to satisfy it, no action needs be taken on it. Freedom from desire means this: the compulsion to satisfy is absent” and “All desires must be given up, because by desiring you take the shape of your desires. When no desires remain, you revert to your natural state” and “Desire is merely the fixation of the mind on an idea” and “Desirelessness is the highest bliss,” and if you “pursue any desire, it will always give you trouble.”
Regarding “Assuring Eternal Life”:
[Maharaj: “You can do nothing. What time has brought about, time will take away” and “You are unborn” and you cannot be born again because you were not even born once. Maharaj made clear that energy and matter – not life – are the eternals.]
As for someone having an “Ageless Body” and “Timeless Mind”:
[“I am neither the body, nor the mind, nor the mental faculties. I am beyond all these” and “You are neither the body nor in the body — there is no such thing as body” and “Self-identification with the body may be good for an infant, but true growing up depends on getting the body out of the way. Normally, one should outgrow body-based desires early in life” and “When you know that you are neither body nor mind, you will not be swayed by them” and “Whatever is conceived by the mind must be false . . . .” and “Desire for embodied existence is the root cause of trouble” and “The body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long. A full life is better than a long life.”]
On “Advancing Your Spirit”:
[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” and “There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding” and “Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end” and “There is no progress” and “Whatever you have tried to understand during your spiritual search will prove false.”]
and
On “The Infinite Self”
[Maharaj: “I take my stand in the original state where I was not aware that I am.”]
Thus, his message on this subject: You take yourself to be a spiritual giant. I am a spiritual pygmy and “avoid Big Name Teachers” and “In this 'spiritual hierarchy,' from the grossest to the subtlest, you are the subtlest.”
The invitation is to put any teacher to the test before you decide to follow. Ask objectively: “Is this person advocating hierarchies?” If so, that is the very antithesis – the exact opposite - of the non-dual message. Move on. Move away.
Best regards as you move away from hierarchies and detach from those who dream them up and try to maintain them.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
26 August 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
“NON-DUALITY” BUYERS BEWARE
F.: Those who grasp the extent of the far-ranging relative effects of hierarchies might eventually gravitate toward a non-dual message that gives no credibility to hierarchies or any other man-made, conceptualized structures that reinforce a false sense of separation and better-than-ment and different-from-ment.
They might find their way to a “teacher” or “guru” that uses the Traditional Method of Teaching, the Direct Path Method of Teaching, the Neo-Advaita Method of Teaching, or the Neo-Vedanta Method of Teaching. Yet the chances are greater each day that they are going to cross paths with a “teacher” of Pseudo-Advaita or Pseudo Non-Duality.
The message in that regard from Maharaj was to “stay away from Big Name Teachers,” and the message here is “'non-duality'” buyers beware”; definitively stay away from “Big Name Teachers”; and understand that hierarchies are as prevalent among those deeming themselves to be “non-dualists” as they are in all other quarters of the planet and societies and structures.
Consider those who decide to play the role of “Rankers and Listmakers” who name non-dual teachers and then assign them a particular level or rank or grade or status on their lists. Two times in the last few years after having been informed that I was on such lists, the sites were contacted and a request was submitted to remove me from their compilations. The replies from the listmakers were not . . . Loving.
One publication called “Watkins Review” has gone so far as to identify what it says are “The Top Ten Most Spiritual People in The World.” Interestingly, their spiritual rankings coincide with the level of “financial blessings” that have come to those "Most Spiritual People" as a result of their “spiritual living.” (According to some, “Watkins Review's” estimates of the net financial worth of the "most spiritual people" are actually lower than the actual amounts which are quite higher):
Here is “Watkins Review’s” hierarchy of the “Most Spiritual People on Earth” and the net worth of those on their list:
Ken Wilber – Net Worth: $1.5 Million
Wayne Dyer – Net Worth: $10 Million
Eckhart Tolle – Net Worth: $15 Million
Paolo Coelho – Net Worth: $18 Million
Louise Hay – Net Worth: $50 Million
Rhonda Byrne - Net Worth: $60 Million
Deepak Chopra - Net Worth: $80 Million
Dalai Lama (Who controls the Tibetan Government Fund) - Over $1 Billion
Thich Nhat Hanh - Net Worth: $1.5 Billion
Oprah Winfrey - Net Worth: $2.8 Billion
[It was reported that a fourth woman, Byron Katie, would have made the list except her net worth is such a guarded secret that the listmakers did not know where to place her in their rankings.]
That same publication promotes the message offered by Charles Fillmore (the founder of Unity Church) who wrote a book entitled "Prosperity" in which he declared, “It’s a sin to be poor,” a message now popular among many right-wing politicians in the U.S. The publication reports: “You can read more about the key spiritual conditions that are necessary for prosperity, in any area of life, in Fillmore’s book.”
The point: persons are deceived if they believe that a person associating herself or himself with “non-duality” - or who is using that term to describe their message or a part of it – is going to be guaranteed to provide accurate non-dual pointers.
A woman shared recently that she had received a brochure promoting “Advanced Mindfulness.” Really?
One of the billionaire Big Name Teachers above touts a message that is quite a popular one among the non-Realized masses when he speaks of a “peaceful mind” while Maharaj made clear that “there is no such thing as peace of mind.” The man listed above speaks of “cultivating the mind.”
By contrast, Maharaj suggested reaching a state of “zero concepts” and "a no-mind state" and bringing the mind to an end (by eliminating any and all beliefs in the mind’s content which then allows the mind to dissolve.) Maharaj made a clear distinction between the false concept of “mindfulness” vs. being awake and aware and conscious.
The same man on the list above says “body and mind are one” whereas Maharaj made clear that the body is literally a conglomeration of the elements of the earth while the mind is the – as Sapolsky also says – an invention of the human species. Yes, while a sick mind can result in actions that damage the elemental plant food body, does that make the body and "a mind" the same? An elemental plant food body is real in that energy and matter are real, but nothing about the mind is real.
As for a religious / spirituality connection with “financial prosperity” and “being blessed,” several old Germanic messages became British messages which became U.S. messages and - in some respects - conscious or subconscious messages among many Western cultures. The messages:
“If you are poor, it is clear evidence that you are displeasing God and that you are sinful, so work more” and – as posted by the Nazis on an archway at the entrance the Auschwitz Concentration Camp during WWII - “Work will set you free.” Additionally, “If your children are born with deformities then it is evidence that you are sinning.”
How did Maharaj know that the message offered with the Big Name Teachers necessarily had to be fraudulent? He knew that the word “popular” means “liked, admired, or enjoyed by many people” or “intended for or suited to the taste, understanding, or means of the general public” or “that which appeals to the tastes of the masses and strikes a chord with 'the conventional wisdom' of the population at large.”
In October of 2009, this pointer was offered for consideration on this site: "What is deemed to be 'conventional wisdom' is actually just widely-accepted learned ignorance." In May of 2010, this related pointer was offered: “Any belief or idea that is part of the collective 'conventional wisdom' amounts to nothing more than a part of the accumulated body of ignorance that has been learned by the masses and taken to be truth, and each such belief or idea is evidence of the duality that dominates the thinking of the ‘mind’-driven masses.”
Nowadays, those on the list above as well as many other Big Name Teachers are adding their popular ideas to the pool of dualistic concepts that are being distributed on a widespread basis. This was shared earlier in that regard:
To look carefully at the topics that the Big Name Teachers are discussing, it can be seen that their subject matter ironically deals with relative issues that are presented as being “beyond-the-relative” and that often really involve the fears and selfish desires of the masses:
“Power”; “Attaining Power”; “The Power of Now”; “The Power of Intention”; “The Power of Words” (as as if “power” in anything other than a man-made, dreamed up concept);
“10 Secrets for Success”; “Getting What You Want”; “The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire”; “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams";
“Assuring Eternal Life”; “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind”; “Advancing Your Spirit”; and “The Infinite Self”; to name but a few.
Tomorrow: More on “Pseudo Advaita,” the selling of popular concepts and popular beliefs as “non-dual” maxims, and the development and perpetuation of hierarchies among so-called “non-duality teachers” / “Big Name Teachers.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
Previous post.
A new eBook, the third that is provided compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr., is now available without charge to all visitors to this site.
23 August 2014
They might find their way to a “teacher” or “guru” that uses the Traditional Method of Teaching, the Direct Path Method of Teaching, the Neo-Advaita Method of Teaching, or the Neo-Vedanta Method of Teaching. Yet the chances are greater each day that they are going to cross paths with a “teacher” of Pseudo-Advaita or Pseudo Non-Duality.
The message in that regard from Maharaj was to “stay away from Big Name Teachers,” and the message here is “'non-duality'” buyers beware”; definitively stay away from “Big Name Teachers”; and understand that hierarchies are as prevalent among those deeming themselves to be “non-dualists” as they are in all other quarters of the planet and societies and structures.
Consider those who decide to play the role of “Rankers and Listmakers” who name non-dual teachers and then assign them a particular level or rank or grade or status on their lists. Two times in the last few years after having been informed that I was on such lists, the sites were contacted and a request was submitted to remove me from their compilations. The replies from the listmakers were not . . . Loving.
One publication called “Watkins Review” has gone so far as to identify what it says are “The Top Ten Most Spiritual People in The World.” Interestingly, their spiritual rankings coincide with the level of “financial blessings” that have come to those "Most Spiritual People" as a result of their “spiritual living.” (According to some, “Watkins Review's” estimates of the net financial worth of the "most spiritual people" are actually lower than the actual amounts which are quite higher):
Here is “Watkins Review’s” hierarchy of the “Most Spiritual People on Earth” and the net worth of those on their list:
Ken Wilber – Net Worth: $1.5 Million
Wayne Dyer – Net Worth: $10 Million
Eckhart Tolle – Net Worth: $15 Million
Paolo Coelho – Net Worth: $18 Million
Louise Hay – Net Worth: $50 Million
Rhonda Byrne - Net Worth: $60 Million
Deepak Chopra - Net Worth: $80 Million
Dalai Lama (Who controls the Tibetan Government Fund) - Over $1 Billion
Thich Nhat Hanh - Net Worth: $1.5 Billion
Oprah Winfrey - Net Worth: $2.8 Billion
[It was reported that a fourth woman, Byron Katie, would have made the list except her net worth is such a guarded secret that the listmakers did not know where to place her in their rankings.]
That same publication promotes the message offered by Charles Fillmore (the founder of Unity Church) who wrote a book entitled "Prosperity" in which he declared, “It’s a sin to be poor,” a message now popular among many right-wing politicians in the U.S. The publication reports: “You can read more about the key spiritual conditions that are necessary for prosperity, in any area of life, in Fillmore’s book.”
The point: persons are deceived if they believe that a person associating herself or himself with “non-duality” - or who is using that term to describe their message or a part of it – is going to be guaranteed to provide accurate non-dual pointers.
A woman shared recently that she had received a brochure promoting “Advanced Mindfulness.” Really?
One of the billionaire Big Name Teachers above touts a message that is quite a popular one among the non-Realized masses when he speaks of a “peaceful mind” while Maharaj made clear that “there is no such thing as peace of mind.” The man listed above speaks of “cultivating the mind.”
By contrast, Maharaj suggested reaching a state of “zero concepts” and "a no-mind state" and bringing the mind to an end (by eliminating any and all beliefs in the mind’s content which then allows the mind to dissolve.) Maharaj made a clear distinction between the false concept of “mindfulness” vs. being awake and aware and conscious.
The same man on the list above says “body and mind are one” whereas Maharaj made clear that the body is literally a conglomeration of the elements of the earth while the mind is the – as Sapolsky also says – an invention of the human species. Yes, while a sick mind can result in actions that damage the elemental plant food body, does that make the body and "a mind" the same? An elemental plant food body is real in that energy and matter are real, but nothing about the mind is real.
As for a religious / spirituality connection with “financial prosperity” and “being blessed,” several old Germanic messages became British messages which became U.S. messages and - in some respects - conscious or subconscious messages among many Western cultures. The messages:
“If you are poor, it is clear evidence that you are displeasing God and that you are sinful, so work more” and – as posted by the Nazis on an archway at the entrance the Auschwitz Concentration Camp during WWII - “Work will set you free.” Additionally, “If your children are born with deformities then it is evidence that you are sinning.”
How did Maharaj know that the message offered with the Big Name Teachers necessarily had to be fraudulent? He knew that the word “popular” means “liked, admired, or enjoyed by many people” or “intended for or suited to the taste, understanding, or means of the general public” or “that which appeals to the tastes of the masses and strikes a chord with 'the conventional wisdom' of the population at large.”
In October of 2009, this pointer was offered for consideration on this site: "What is deemed to be 'conventional wisdom' is actually just widely-accepted learned ignorance." In May of 2010, this related pointer was offered: “Any belief or idea that is part of the collective 'conventional wisdom' amounts to nothing more than a part of the accumulated body of ignorance that has been learned by the masses and taken to be truth, and each such belief or idea is evidence of the duality that dominates the thinking of the ‘mind’-driven masses.”
Nowadays, those on the list above as well as many other Big Name Teachers are adding their popular ideas to the pool of dualistic concepts that are being distributed on a widespread basis. This was shared earlier in that regard:
To look carefully at the topics that the Big Name Teachers are discussing, it can be seen that their subject matter ironically deals with relative issues that are presented as being “beyond-the-relative” and that often really involve the fears and selfish desires of the masses:
“Power”; “Attaining Power”; “The Power of Now”; “The Power of Intention”; “The Power of Words” (as as if “power” in anything other than a man-made, dreamed up concept);
“10 Secrets for Success”; “Getting What You Want”; “The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire”; “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams";
“Assuring Eternal Life”; “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind”; “Advancing Your Spirit”; and “The Infinite Self”; to name but a few.
Tomorrow: More on “Pseudo Advaita,” the selling of popular concepts and popular beliefs as “non-dual” maxims, and the development and perpetuation of hierarchies among so-called “non-duality teachers” / “Big Name Teachers.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
Previous post.
A new eBook, the third that is provided compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr., is now available without charge to all visitors to this site.
Why has Andy chosen to cover the cost of the writing and sharing of the three eBooks that are available on this site? Because decades of searching by Andy finally came to an end when he took all seven steps on the “path” exactly as offered here via the Direct Path Method combined with the Nisarga Yoga. Now he wants as many as possible to have that same opportunity to be free and to abide naturally.
Here is the way he described what happened to him after years of seeking and then coming here to a retreat. These are his words from the “Editor’s Note” which appears in the front of two paperback books which are anthologies that contain ten non-duality books that have been collected and published in those two volumes:
Before I found the Advaita teachings, both my seeking and my life were totally disorganized. I had read over two hundred books during my search which began around the age of eleven or twelve. All of the content of those books was very confusing. Why?
While some presented teachings that seemed in the beginning to be of value, in the end they proved useless because none of the pointers were organized in a way to offer in a step-by-step manner the route that had to be followed to move away from identification with the false "I" and return to My Original Nature.
It became clear that - in my case - I required a teacher that could offer such an explanation and that could be available to answer my many questions along the way.
Though my reading left me a supposed "expert" is subjects dealing with the brain and the mind and psychology and psychiatry, there was no understanding at all of the functioning of the totality.
So my searching continued for many more years, moving from one book to the next and from one religion to the next and from one spiritual movement to the next and from one philosophy to the next. I studied Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism - you name it - I studied it.
It is suspected that many may have traveled as arduous a road as the one I traveled, but few likely traveled a more arduous route than the one I traveled during my years of seeking.
The searching in one venue after another continued until an acquaintance shared certain profound pointers that seemed to resonance deeply within me.
I asked what he was talking about ... asked if the pointers he was sharing were associated with any particular philosophy or religion that I could further investigate. He answered, "What I'm sharing is what is called 'a non-dual perspective'."
"What is that?" I asked.
"Basically, the simplest teaching is that everything is one." That made little sense, but it did seem to reverberate at some spot deep inside me. Eventually, intuition was re-awakened and there was some sort of "psychic consciousness" that began to vibrate when non-duality pointers were being considered.
After being given some labels for further investigation - specifically, "non-duality" and "Advaita" - it soon became clear that I needed to find a capable Advaita teacher.
The irony was that, as I began searching for a teacher, all of the online sites promoting and ranking various teachers were actually reinforcing duality ... ranking this one as "best" and that one as "good" and that other one as "not so adept." Instead of focusing on how we could eliminate our beliefs in hierarchies and separation and judgment, they were promoting all of those.
So I left the listings and began googling "Advaita" and found a blog site where Floyd Henderson was offering daily postings of non-dual pointers.
I began investigating this guy, wondering who he thought he was to be posting pointers about Advaita. He was not even from the Far East. Worse, my investigations uncovered the fact that this guy lived in Texas.
Being yet embroiled in ego, I asked, "Who does this guy living outside of Houston, Texas think he is ... acting like he 'knows it all' about these teachings?" I concluded, "Heck, I live in Texas. I guarantee I already know as much about non-duality as any other person living in Texas. Who from Texas could offer anything about this eastern philosophy?"
Then I clicked the link for the retreats he offered and saw that, of even greater offense, he wanted to charge a fee for retreats where he teaches non-duality. (At the time, it did not register that I was not providing free meals to everyone who entered one of the restaurants in the chain I own.)
[NOTE: What Andy is not revealing here is all of the altruistic and philanthropic projects and charities which he has funded for years, offering assistance to the downtrodden and suffering.]
A year would pass, and more and more searching continued, but at least once a week, the name "Floyd Henderson" came into the forefront of consciousness.
As much as I tried to ignore the name, it would not leave me, so after a year of continued seeking even after having first found his name and websites, I finally went back to his Advaita blog site, looked at the cost of a retreat with him, and concluded, differently this time, "Well, actually it really is only a nominal fee he is charging, and he does have to pay his bills."
So it came to me, "What if this guy just might have what you've been looking for all of your life?" I determined that I might as well spend a few dollars - a small amount really in comparison to the fortune I had already spent during decades of seeking and searching ... all with no permanent results at all.
Right now, it is giving me cold chills just reflecting on that decision and what happened afterwards. I had reached a point where I felt as if I were going to pop right out of my skin from all of the suffering and misery and anxiety and stress that had characterized my existence.
For me, it had to get so bad that I became willing and ready - ready to give up all of the ideas and beliefs that had served me not at all and to seek the Truth that was obviously beyond all of the concepts I had ever taken to be the truth.
Eventually, I went to a retreat at Floyd's home and left three days later having found that I was not only willing to give up all of those concepts but had become willing to give up this fear-based "andy" that had been at the root of my problems.
Now, I look back and laugh. Before the time spent in Floyd's home, I hated to wake up in the morning. Now, I can't wait to get up and enjoy every day.
I was raised to believe that Jesus had the answers that people need. At Floyd's retreat, I found out that in many cases, he did, but the answers were not the ones I was taught in church.
I found that "the later Jesus" who returned to Jerusalem was sharing the non-dual, Advaita teachings - teachings I had heard on occasion when I was younger but that no one in the church could or would explain to me when I asked about those statements.
I went to Floyd's that first time with a considerable fear of death (rooted, I would learn, in body and mind and personality identification). He suggested that if I was so afraid of death that the best thing I could do would be to "go ahead and die now."
Of course that was an anger-invoking, shocking comment to hear, but before I left, I understood that I could not die because I was not born - that what he was saying is that my ego(s) and my egotism must "die."
I understood after that retreat that I cannot truly live until this ego - this illusion - dies. To that point, I was entering Floyd's house one morning through the door he leaves open while he is preparing breakfast for participants.
As I entered, I shouted, "Knock knock ... anybody home?" He yelled back, "No." I got it ... I knew exactly what he meant, and that understanding has remained and I have since enjoyed the freedom every day of knowing I am no body ... nobody.
I came to understood that everything merely cycles and that timelines are a fraud, and Floyd also taught me the meaning of every part of his vision, and I learned by way of the eagle the difference in Subject-Object Witnessing and Pure Witnessing.
Why am I making this anthology available for all seekers to use now and to be available long after "floyd" and "andy" have taken mahasamadhi and are "gone"? First, because the books in this anthology offer the step-by-step process by which Realization can happen and, secondly, because the books helped me in that undertaking.
I want to preserve Floyd's vision and his writings for all who are seeking. I decided to support the printing of this anthology to make his teachings and methods available - to all that might be interested - because of what happened with me after sitting with Floyd and receiving the message that came by way of his step-by-step method which I realized was exactly what I had been seeking all of my life.
I am taking the action to help make these books available to interested seekers because I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if the understanding offered in these books - and Floyd's other books - could come to me, then the understanding can come to almost anyone.
May you allow the pure consciousness to see and receive the content of the works in this anthology and then also receive as a result the blissful freedom that came to me via the content of these and the other writings by Floyd Henderson.
Recognizing no hierarchies but modeling instead humility and a sense of the unicity and the version of Real Love of which Maharaj spoke, all of that has provided the motivation that is behind his caring and generosity and sharing. Andy now provides all of the assistance he can to allow as many as possible to receive the message which can bring to as many as possible the same message of freedom which he received, including freedom from stress, tension, worry, and anxiety. As a result of his generosity, over 6,000 books have been distributed without charge so far.
That is why Andy now does all that he possibly can to assist others so that they might also receive the means by which persons can move away from identification with the false “I” / “I’s”; can escape the bondage of body and mind and personality identification; and might receive an awareness of the truth and might receive the light which can burn away misery and suffering by freeing them from the relative burdens that are rooted in darkness, allowing them thereafter to abide naturally and normally and sanely for the remainder of the manifestation.
You may send a request for your free copy to the following email address. The last time an offering was posted, over 500 requests came in during the first three days, so please allow time for your request to be processed. Thanks.
Here is the way he described what happened to him after years of seeking and then coming here to a retreat. These are his words from the “Editor’s Note” which appears in the front of two paperback books which are anthologies that contain ten non-duality books that have been collected and published in those two volumes:
Before I found the Advaita teachings, both my seeking and my life were totally disorganized. I had read over two hundred books during my search which began around the age of eleven or twelve. All of the content of those books was very confusing. Why?
While some presented teachings that seemed in the beginning to be of value, in the end they proved useless because none of the pointers were organized in a way to offer in a step-by-step manner the route that had to be followed to move away from identification with the false "I" and return to My Original Nature.
It became clear that - in my case - I required a teacher that could offer such an explanation and that could be available to answer my many questions along the way.
Though my reading left me a supposed "expert" is subjects dealing with the brain and the mind and psychology and psychiatry, there was no understanding at all of the functioning of the totality.
So my searching continued for many more years, moving from one book to the next and from one religion to the next and from one spiritual movement to the next and from one philosophy to the next. I studied Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism - you name it - I studied it.
It is suspected that many may have traveled as arduous a road as the one I traveled, but few likely traveled a more arduous route than the one I traveled during my years of seeking.
The searching in one venue after another continued until an acquaintance shared certain profound pointers that seemed to resonance deeply within me.
I asked what he was talking about ... asked if the pointers he was sharing were associated with any particular philosophy or religion that I could further investigate. He answered, "What I'm sharing is what is called 'a non-dual perspective'."
"What is that?" I asked.
"Basically, the simplest teaching is that everything is one." That made little sense, but it did seem to reverberate at some spot deep inside me. Eventually, intuition was re-awakened and there was some sort of "psychic consciousness" that began to vibrate when non-duality pointers were being considered.
After being given some labels for further investigation - specifically, "non-duality" and "Advaita" - it soon became clear that I needed to find a capable Advaita teacher.
The irony was that, as I began searching for a teacher, all of the online sites promoting and ranking various teachers were actually reinforcing duality ... ranking this one as "best" and that one as "good" and that other one as "not so adept." Instead of focusing on how we could eliminate our beliefs in hierarchies and separation and judgment, they were promoting all of those.
So I left the listings and began googling "Advaita" and found a blog site where Floyd Henderson was offering daily postings of non-dual pointers.
I began investigating this guy, wondering who he thought he was to be posting pointers about Advaita. He was not even from the Far East. Worse, my investigations uncovered the fact that this guy lived in Texas.
Being yet embroiled in ego, I asked, "Who does this guy living outside of Houston, Texas think he is ... acting like he 'knows it all' about these teachings?" I concluded, "Heck, I live in Texas. I guarantee I already know as much about non-duality as any other person living in Texas. Who from Texas could offer anything about this eastern philosophy?"
Then I clicked the link for the retreats he offered and saw that, of even greater offense, he wanted to charge a fee for retreats where he teaches non-duality. (At the time, it did not register that I was not providing free meals to everyone who entered one of the restaurants in the chain I own.)
[NOTE: What Andy is not revealing here is all of the altruistic and philanthropic projects and charities which he has funded for years, offering assistance to the downtrodden and suffering.]
A year would pass, and more and more searching continued, but at least once a week, the name "Floyd Henderson" came into the forefront of consciousness.
As much as I tried to ignore the name, it would not leave me, so after a year of continued seeking even after having first found his name and websites, I finally went back to his Advaita blog site, looked at the cost of a retreat with him, and concluded, differently this time, "Well, actually it really is only a nominal fee he is charging, and he does have to pay his bills."
So it came to me, "What if this guy just might have what you've been looking for all of your life?" I determined that I might as well spend a few dollars - a small amount really in comparison to the fortune I had already spent during decades of seeking and searching ... all with no permanent results at all.
Right now, it is giving me cold chills just reflecting on that decision and what happened afterwards. I had reached a point where I felt as if I were going to pop right out of my skin from all of the suffering and misery and anxiety and stress that had characterized my existence.
For me, it had to get so bad that I became willing and ready - ready to give up all of the ideas and beliefs that had served me not at all and to seek the Truth that was obviously beyond all of the concepts I had ever taken to be the truth.
Eventually, I went to a retreat at Floyd's home and left three days later having found that I was not only willing to give up all of those concepts but had become willing to give up this fear-based "andy" that had been at the root of my problems.
Now, I look back and laugh. Before the time spent in Floyd's home, I hated to wake up in the morning. Now, I can't wait to get up and enjoy every day.
I was raised to believe that Jesus had the answers that people need. At Floyd's retreat, I found out that in many cases, he did, but the answers were not the ones I was taught in church.
I found that "the later Jesus" who returned to Jerusalem was sharing the non-dual, Advaita teachings - teachings I had heard on occasion when I was younger but that no one in the church could or would explain to me when I asked about those statements.
I went to Floyd's that first time with a considerable fear of death (rooted, I would learn, in body and mind and personality identification). He suggested that if I was so afraid of death that the best thing I could do would be to "go ahead and die now."
Of course that was an anger-invoking, shocking comment to hear, but before I left, I understood that I could not die because I was not born - that what he was saying is that my ego(s) and my egotism must "die."
I understood after that retreat that I cannot truly live until this ego - this illusion - dies. To that point, I was entering Floyd's house one morning through the door he leaves open while he is preparing breakfast for participants.
As I entered, I shouted, "Knock knock ... anybody home?" He yelled back, "No." I got it ... I knew exactly what he meant, and that understanding has remained and I have since enjoyed the freedom every day of knowing I am no body ... nobody.
I came to understood that everything merely cycles and that timelines are a fraud, and Floyd also taught me the meaning of every part of his vision, and I learned by way of the eagle the difference in Subject-Object Witnessing and Pure Witnessing.
Why am I making this anthology available for all seekers to use now and to be available long after "floyd" and "andy" have taken mahasamadhi and are "gone"? First, because the books in this anthology offer the step-by-step process by which Realization can happen and, secondly, because the books helped me in that undertaking.
I want to preserve Floyd's vision and his writings for all who are seeking. I decided to support the printing of this anthology to make his teachings and methods available - to all that might be interested - because of what happened with me after sitting with Floyd and receiving the message that came by way of his step-by-step method which I realized was exactly what I had been seeking all of my life.
I am taking the action to help make these books available to interested seekers because I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if the understanding offered in these books - and Floyd's other books - could come to me, then the understanding can come to almost anyone.
May you allow the pure consciousness to see and receive the content of the works in this anthology and then also receive as a result the blissful freedom that came to me via the content of these and the other writings by Floyd Henderson.
Recognizing no hierarchies but modeling instead humility and a sense of the unicity and the version of Real Love of which Maharaj spoke, all of that has provided the motivation that is behind his caring and generosity and sharing. Andy now provides all of the assistance he can to allow as many as possible to receive the message which can bring to as many as possible the same message of freedom which he received, including freedom from stress, tension, worry, and anxiety. As a result of his generosity, over 6,000 books have been distributed without charge so far.
That is why Andy now does all that he possibly can to assist others so that they might also receive the means by which persons can move away from identification with the false “I” / “I’s”; can escape the bondage of body and mind and personality identification; and might receive an awareness of the truth and might receive the light which can burn away misery and suffering by freeing them from the relative burdens that are rooted in darkness, allowing them thereafter to abide naturally and normally and sanely for the remainder of the manifestation.
You may send a request for your free copy to the following email address. The last time an offering was posted, over 500 requests came in during the first three days, so please allow time for your request to be processed. Thanks.
Peace, Unity, Light and Love
23 August 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
THE CONCLUSION
F.: As if there were not already enough stress among humans, in the years since the global financial crisis hit and since the emergence of revelations regarding the collusion between corrupt governments and greedy banking and investment firms, the level of stress among human around the globe has increased from its formerly-already-through-the-roof levels to even higher concentrations now.
The financial (and, especially, capitalistic) hierarchies around the globe have been stretched to new lengths with greater proportions of wealth shifting to those at the top and with deeper levels of poverty (a) generating all of their subsequent negative impacts, relatively speaking and with (b) an exacerbation of the already-often-debilitating effects on those stuck in the lower echelons of the planet’s near-limitless number of hierarchies.
Anger, frustration, and the consequent sense of powerlessness that is accompanying the awareness among the masses of their inability to do little or anything at all in regards to the abuses of big business and big government have resulted in exponential increases in stress levels.
Add to that the fact that most persons are not following the proper food plan for their specific, metabolic body type, the result of which is under-nourished, under-functioning organs which adversely affect moods and which generate all sorts of, first, physical consequences and then eventually produce all sorts of mental and emotional disorders.
Then add to all of the above the fact that scientists have now derived specific equations which they have been able to use to measure the huge levels of stress that have resulted from the recent polar shift and a new “perfect storm of stressors” has resulted.
Some say, “That’s all relative, Floyd. I have nothing to do with things relative.” Maybe so, but things relative are going to have a great deal to do with you, and that will continue to be the case as long as the AM-ness continues and as long as the validity of the summative statement of non-duality (“I AM THAT; I AM”) also continues to be true.
For example, things relative happened to twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the U.S. after Adam Lanza awoke on the morning of December 14, 2012, killed his mother, drove to the school, killed twenty children and six adults there, and then shot himself in the head.
Some of those children prior to his arrival were likely as happy, as content, and as peaceful as anyone that has Realized Fully. Yet something completely relative happened to change all of that.
Be as Fully Realized as You can be, but the fact remains that you – the composite unity – will continue to bump up against the ignorance and stupidity and insanity that prevail in every corner of the phenomenal existence.
Can the Understanding provide a sort of “Noumenal, Teflon coating” for you that prevents the insanity of things relative and phenomenal from “sticking” to you? You bet. Yet few can abide as isolated hermits 24 / 7. Most have to venture out into their societies and most have to be exposed to the ignorance and insanity that surrounds everyone in cultures all around the globe.
If you have received the full dosage of the Ultimate Medicine, then you are no longer suffering from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness as you did formerly. Yet there are still billions walking the planet who are coughing up the nonsense generated by their Sickness, and the chances are high that you are going to end up around some really Sick persons and will have to deal with them to some degree.
More significantly, if you are not at the very bottom of your culture’s hierarchies, then you are in a position to help heal the stress of those on the lower levels. You have a chance to help alleviate to some degree the stress, tension, worry, anxiety, misery and suffering of those "stuck at the bottom of the totem pole."
This past week, while trying to assist a friend recovering from major surgery, the tasks prevented my hauling the garbage to the curb on Tuesday as is required for pickup. By Friday, the added accumulation was huge, and there was no doubt that the over-worked, over-stressed collectors who had worked through a rainstorm the day before and who were now dealing with a heat index of 107 degrees Fahrenheit, were already likely miserable. Seeing the waiting mound of trash was not going to lighten their workload or their disposition or their level of stress.
Hearing the large truck approaching, I walked to the curb and told the man as he stepped off the back of the truck to begin tossing the mound of garbage bags into the back, “I missed getting the bags out on Tuesday so by today all of this has acculturated. I’d like to help you load the bags.” Together, side-by-side, we tossed the bags into the truck. Before driving away, the driver got out of the truck and walked to back and extended his arm and said, “I’d like to shake your hand. Thank you very much, brother.”
I cannot describe the look of amazement and then joy that crossed the face of the loader as he climbed onto the back of the truck to ride to the next house. Someone at one of the lowest ends of the cultural and financial hierarchy had been treated with some concern and respect, and - for a short spell at least - the hierarchy in which he was trapped had been temporarily shattered.
Is that shared to tout the level of compassion here? Hardly. It is shared as one example of the type of action you might take to alleviate – if only temporarily - some of the stress-inducing effects of hierarchies on those “at the bottom.”
Another example: At National Instruments in Austin, Texas where my daughter is employed, the already-fluid hierarchy that existed in the early days at the company has been disassembled almost entirely by the current CEO. As a result, in annual Fortune 500 surveys, he is given by his employees one of the highest ratings of any boss in any company in the U.S. (and worldwide, too, where the company has offices in fifty other countries).
How has the hierarchy been dismantled? No one has a closed-in office. All work in individual cubicles that are placed so that all workers have a nature-filled window view of the forests and the lake surrounding the facilities. The CEO also works out of a cubicle, one that is no larger and no different from that used by every employee.
Gyms are available with free membership; a full-time medical team is present daily, so one who is sick is given company-provided care inside the corporate facilities; three cafeterias offer excellent, healthy meals at cost. Workers regularly receive paid leave to volunteer their time and effort for community projects, and the organization is devoted to being a model for the way that businesses can operate in a “green,” environmentally-friendly way and still make a decent profit.
The positive attitude that results from working at a company that is as employee-oriented as it is customer-and-sales-oriented has an amazing impact on attitude and production, reflected in the high ratings given to the company and to the boss in annual surveys.
The point: there is no endorsement of the concept of karma here, but if one were to have a “positive” (relative) impact on her or his environment and society, the Am-ness of that one will necessarily have to shift to something more peaceful and enjoyable, again, relatively speaking.
The next point: Are you “a boss”? Are you “at the top of a hierarchy”? Would you be willing to make some changes that can have a “positive” impact on those working for you? Would you be willing to start that process today?
SOCIETAL CHANGES AND IMPACTS
There being no beliefs here, there is certainly no belief that anyone can change “the world” (which is nothing more than an imagined illusion seated in the minds of every non-Realized person). Consider an early pointer offered by Sapolsky in the film "STRESS: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER":
Sapolsky: [Watching alpha male baboons - the dominant, male baboons on a savannah in Kenya - as they abuse those below them in their hierarchy] “You live in a place like this, you’re a baboon, and you only have to spend about three hours a day getting all your calories. And if you only have to work three hours a day, you’ve got nine hours of free time every day to devote to making someone else just miserable. [Baboons shrieking] They're not being stressed by lions chasing them all the time. They're being stressed by each other. They're being stressed by social and psychological tumult invented by their own species. They're a perfect model for westernized, stress-related disease.”
The supposedly Realized might claim: “I cannot be affected by anything relative. Those who allow others to stress them are the ones at fault, not the stressors.” (So much for sensing the unicity which allows for feelings of empathy and compassion and allows for some responsiveness to those yet suffering. How soon some forget that they were in that position at one time before having come across the path of someone who taught them to differentiate between “love” and “Love,” someone that already had an ability to feel empathy and compassion and that was willing to be responsive to that one seeking relief from misery and suffering, someone that allowed them to enjoy freedom from the effects of all of the relative nonsense that billions of persons try to handle every day.)
As long as the persons on this planet remain a largely non-Realized population – having no understanding at all of Reality – then the “reality” for those at the low levels of their cultures' hierarchies is that they will abide in the exact same fashion as Sapolsky’s baboons on the savannah:
They will deal with others who are higher up the hierarchy and who have the time and inclination “to devote to making someone else just miserable” and who behave exactly like certain domineering, male baboons that Sapolsky described as follows: some are “these scheming, back-stabbing Machiavellian bastards.” Being non-Realized, the masses will be stressed “by social and psychological tumult invented by their own species.”
Finally, you are invited to consider the final pointers from the film "STRESS: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER":
Narrator: “Who would have imagined that Robert’s baboons, roaming the cruel plains of Africa, would point us humans toward a stress-free utopia?”
Marmot: “This may sound a little fanciful, but I think what we're trying to create is a better society.” [Relative? Yes. An idealization? Maybe, but please consider anyway for a moment.] “The implication, both of the baboons and of the British Civil Servants, is: ‘How can we create a society that has the conditions that will allow people to flourish?’ And that's where this is heading: to create a society that promotes human flourishing.”
Sapolsky: “So what can baboons teach the average person? Don't bite somebody because you're having a bad day. Don't displace on them in any sort of matter. Another one of the things that baboons teach us is this: if they're able, in one generation, to transform what are supposed to be textbook social systems that are sort of engraved in stone, we don't have any excuse when we say there's certain inevitabilities about human social systems.”
Narrator: “And so the haunting question that endures from Robert's life work is this: ‘Are we brave enough to learn from a baboon? The Keekorok troop didn't just survive without stress, they thrived. Can we?’”
“SOLO” CHANGES AND IMPACTS
So, are you adverse to such relative or idealized pointers? Then look to the specific changes and impacts that can evolve from your own completion of the “journey” to Full Realization.
Maharaj said: “Wisdom is knowing that I am nothing. Love is knowing that I am everything.”
Were one to truly know that “all is One,” then how could one still buy into hierarchy-based distinctions? How could one believe in the concepts of “different-from-ment” and “better-than-ment”? How could one take any action that supports and maintains any hierarchy that promotes and reinforces a sense of separation and stress?
One cannot. Post-Realization, there is time for peace, for quiet, and for silence, but there is no time for “making someone else just miserable.”
And there can also be time set aside to share via the non-dual message a means by which persons can reach an understanding which can, in turn, allow seekers to become free of misery and suffering. That is why these posts have been offered most mornings - without charge - since the summer of 2005.
That is why, once the understanding freed Andy Gugar, Jr., that he has carried this message and has provided - without charge – certain books that contain the message that led to his attaining the Full Understanding that, in turn, led to Full Freedom.
Thus, from this author and from Andy Gugar, Jr., the invitation is to follow the “path” to its end, to complete the entire three-leg “journey,” to then abide for the remainder of the manifestation in a Nisargan (natural) fashion, and to abide in a spontaneous mode that allows for the manifestation of joy that only the IS-ness can allow for throughout the remainder of the relative existence.
Peace, Unity, Light and Love.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
22 August 2014
COMING SOON:
A new eBook, the third that is provided compliments of Andy Gugar, Jr., made available by him without charge to all visitors to this site.
THE CONCLUSION
F.: As if there were not already enough stress among humans, in the years since the global financial crisis hit and since the emergence of revelations regarding the collusion between corrupt governments and greedy banking and investment firms, the level of stress among human around the globe has increased from its formerly-already-through-the-roof levels to even higher concentrations now.
The financial (and, especially, capitalistic) hierarchies around the globe have been stretched to new lengths with greater proportions of wealth shifting to those at the top and with deeper levels of poverty (a) generating all of their subsequent negative impacts, relatively speaking and with (b) an exacerbation of the already-often-debilitating effects on those stuck in the lower echelons of the planet’s near-limitless number of hierarchies.
Anger, frustration, and the consequent sense of powerlessness that is accompanying the awareness among the masses of their inability to do little or anything at all in regards to the abuses of big business and big government have resulted in exponential increases in stress levels.
Add to that the fact that most persons are not following the proper food plan for their specific, metabolic body type, the result of which is under-nourished, under-functioning organs which adversely affect moods and which generate all sorts of, first, physical consequences and then eventually produce all sorts of mental and emotional disorders.
Then add to all of the above the fact that scientists have now derived specific equations which they have been able to use to measure the huge levels of stress that have resulted from the recent polar shift and a new “perfect storm of stressors” has resulted.
Some say, “That’s all relative, Floyd. I have nothing to do with things relative.” Maybe so, but things relative are going to have a great deal to do with you, and that will continue to be the case as long as the AM-ness continues and as long as the validity of the summative statement of non-duality (“I AM THAT; I AM”) also continues to be true.
For example, things relative happened to twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the U.S. after Adam Lanza awoke on the morning of December 14, 2012, killed his mother, drove to the school, killed twenty children and six adults there, and then shot himself in the head.
Some of those children prior to his arrival were likely as happy, as content, and as peaceful as anyone that has Realized Fully. Yet something completely relative happened to change all of that.
Be as Fully Realized as You can be, but the fact remains that you – the composite unity – will continue to bump up against the ignorance and stupidity and insanity that prevail in every corner of the phenomenal existence.
Can the Understanding provide a sort of “Noumenal, Teflon coating” for you that prevents the insanity of things relative and phenomenal from “sticking” to you? You bet. Yet few can abide as isolated hermits 24 / 7. Most have to venture out into their societies and most have to be exposed to the ignorance and insanity that surrounds everyone in cultures all around the globe.
If you have received the full dosage of the Ultimate Medicine, then you are no longer suffering from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness as you did formerly. Yet there are still billions walking the planet who are coughing up the nonsense generated by their Sickness, and the chances are high that you are going to end up around some really Sick persons and will have to deal with them to some degree.
More significantly, if you are not at the very bottom of your culture’s hierarchies, then you are in a position to help heal the stress of those on the lower levels. You have a chance to help alleviate to some degree the stress, tension, worry, anxiety, misery and suffering of those "stuck at the bottom of the totem pole."
This past week, while trying to assist a friend recovering from major surgery, the tasks prevented my hauling the garbage to the curb on Tuesday as is required for pickup. By Friday, the added accumulation was huge, and there was no doubt that the over-worked, over-stressed collectors who had worked through a rainstorm the day before and who were now dealing with a heat index of 107 degrees Fahrenheit, were already likely miserable. Seeing the waiting mound of trash was not going to lighten their workload or their disposition or their level of stress.
Hearing the large truck approaching, I walked to the curb and told the man as he stepped off the back of the truck to begin tossing the mound of garbage bags into the back, “I missed getting the bags out on Tuesday so by today all of this has acculturated. I’d like to help you load the bags.” Together, side-by-side, we tossed the bags into the truck. Before driving away, the driver got out of the truck and walked to back and extended his arm and said, “I’d like to shake your hand. Thank you very much, brother.”
I cannot describe the look of amazement and then joy that crossed the face of the loader as he climbed onto the back of the truck to ride to the next house. Someone at one of the lowest ends of the cultural and financial hierarchy had been treated with some concern and respect, and - for a short spell at least - the hierarchy in which he was trapped had been temporarily shattered.
Is that shared to tout the level of compassion here? Hardly. It is shared as one example of the type of action you might take to alleviate – if only temporarily - some of the stress-inducing effects of hierarchies on those “at the bottom.”
Another example: At National Instruments in Austin, Texas where my daughter is employed, the already-fluid hierarchy that existed in the early days at the company has been disassembled almost entirely by the current CEO. As a result, in annual Fortune 500 surveys, he is given by his employees one of the highest ratings of any boss in any company in the U.S. (and worldwide, too, where the company has offices in fifty other countries).
How has the hierarchy been dismantled? No one has a closed-in office. All work in individual cubicles that are placed so that all workers have a nature-filled window view of the forests and the lake surrounding the facilities. The CEO also works out of a cubicle, one that is no larger and no different from that used by every employee.
Gyms are available with free membership; a full-time medical team is present daily, so one who is sick is given company-provided care inside the corporate facilities; three cafeterias offer excellent, healthy meals at cost. Workers regularly receive paid leave to volunteer their time and effort for community projects, and the organization is devoted to being a model for the way that businesses can operate in a “green,” environmentally-friendly way and still make a decent profit.
The positive attitude that results from working at a company that is as employee-oriented as it is customer-and-sales-oriented has an amazing impact on attitude and production, reflected in the high ratings given to the company and to the boss in annual surveys.
The point: there is no endorsement of the concept of karma here, but if one were to have a “positive” (relative) impact on her or his environment and society, the Am-ness of that one will necessarily have to shift to something more peaceful and enjoyable, again, relatively speaking.
The next point: Are you “a boss”? Are you “at the top of a hierarchy”? Would you be willing to make some changes that can have a “positive” impact on those working for you? Would you be willing to start that process today?
SOCIETAL CHANGES AND IMPACTS
There being no beliefs here, there is certainly no belief that anyone can change “the world” (which is nothing more than an imagined illusion seated in the minds of every non-Realized person). Consider an early pointer offered by Sapolsky in the film "STRESS: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER":
Sapolsky: [Watching alpha male baboons - the dominant, male baboons on a savannah in Kenya - as they abuse those below them in their hierarchy] “You live in a place like this, you’re a baboon, and you only have to spend about three hours a day getting all your calories. And if you only have to work three hours a day, you’ve got nine hours of free time every day to devote to making someone else just miserable. [Baboons shrieking] They're not being stressed by lions chasing them all the time. They're being stressed by each other. They're being stressed by social and psychological tumult invented by their own species. They're a perfect model for westernized, stress-related disease.”
The supposedly Realized might claim: “I cannot be affected by anything relative. Those who allow others to stress them are the ones at fault, not the stressors.” (So much for sensing the unicity which allows for feelings of empathy and compassion and allows for some responsiveness to those yet suffering. How soon some forget that they were in that position at one time before having come across the path of someone who taught them to differentiate between “love” and “Love,” someone that already had an ability to feel empathy and compassion and that was willing to be responsive to that one seeking relief from misery and suffering, someone that allowed them to enjoy freedom from the effects of all of the relative nonsense that billions of persons try to handle every day.)
As long as the persons on this planet remain a largely non-Realized population – having no understanding at all of Reality – then the “reality” for those at the low levels of their cultures' hierarchies is that they will abide in the exact same fashion as Sapolsky’s baboons on the savannah:
They will deal with others who are higher up the hierarchy and who have the time and inclination “to devote to making someone else just miserable” and who behave exactly like certain domineering, male baboons that Sapolsky described as follows: some are “these scheming, back-stabbing Machiavellian bastards.” Being non-Realized, the masses will be stressed “by social and psychological tumult invented by their own species.”
Finally, you are invited to consider the final pointers from the film "STRESS: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER":
Narrator: “Who would have imagined that Robert’s baboons, roaming the cruel plains of Africa, would point us humans toward a stress-free utopia?”
Marmot: “This may sound a little fanciful, but I think what we're trying to create is a better society.” [Relative? Yes. An idealization? Maybe, but please consider anyway for a moment.] “The implication, both of the baboons and of the British Civil Servants, is: ‘How can we create a society that has the conditions that will allow people to flourish?’ And that's where this is heading: to create a society that promotes human flourishing.”
Sapolsky: “So what can baboons teach the average person? Don't bite somebody because you're having a bad day. Don't displace on them in any sort of matter. Another one of the things that baboons teach us is this: if they're able, in one generation, to transform what are supposed to be textbook social systems that are sort of engraved in stone, we don't have any excuse when we say there's certain inevitabilities about human social systems.”
Narrator: “And so the haunting question that endures from Robert's life work is this: ‘Are we brave enough to learn from a baboon? The Keekorok troop didn't just survive without stress, they thrived. Can we?’”
“SOLO” CHANGES AND IMPACTS
So, are you adverse to such relative or idealized pointers? Then look to the specific changes and impacts that can evolve from your own completion of the “journey” to Full Realization.
Maharaj said: “Wisdom is knowing that I am nothing. Love is knowing that I am everything.”
Were one to truly know that “all is One,” then how could one still buy into hierarchy-based distinctions? How could one believe in the concepts of “different-from-ment” and “better-than-ment”? How could one take any action that supports and maintains any hierarchy that promotes and reinforces a sense of separation and stress?
One cannot. Post-Realization, there is time for peace, for quiet, and for silence, but there is no time for “making someone else just miserable.”
And there can also be time set aside to share via the non-dual message a means by which persons can reach an understanding which can, in turn, allow seekers to become free of misery and suffering. That is why these posts have been offered most mornings - without charge - since the summer of 2005.
That is why, once the understanding freed Andy Gugar, Jr., that he has carried this message and has provided - without charge – certain books that contain the message that led to his attaining the Full Understanding that, in turn, led to Full Freedom.
Thus, from this author and from Andy Gugar, Jr., the invitation is to follow the “path” to its end, to complete the entire three-leg “journey,” to then abide for the remainder of the manifestation in a Nisargan (natural) fashion, and to abide in a spontaneous mode that allows for the manifestation of joy that only the IS-ness can allow for throughout the remainder of the relative existence.
Peace, Unity, Light and Love.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
22 August 2014
A DAILY CONSIDERATION FOR YOU
F.: From yesterday:
Sapolsky, and Maharaj in his own way as well, showed . . .
that only one species on the planet (namely, humans) suffer from “social and psychological tumult”;
that the tumult “has been invented by their own species”;
that the tumult is aggravated by the near-limitless hierarchies that manifest globally;
that the tumult is rooted in a psychological source (being generated by the warped, belief-filled minds of humans); and
that the tumult results in stress and discontentment and chaos and the instability that always accompanies dual-mindedness.
Both Maharaj (via the Understanding that came via conscious contact with the “inner guru” or the “inner resource”) and Sapolsky (via the understanding that came through the non-duality-supporting scientific research which Maharaj foretold) came to see that the problems of humanity are rooted in the “psychological tumult” that comes after entering into a “psychological state.”
The Ultimate Medicine for the treatment of the resultant Ultimate (and Psychological) Sickness - characterized by the “psychological tumult” that is generated after entering into a “psychological state” or states - must, therefore, involve . . .
(A) the elimination of the psychological states (the assumed ego-states / personas / personalities)
and
(B) the elimination of the mind (where the personalities are blooming and thriving as a result of being fertilized by the mental caca in the psychological cesspit there). That elimination must happen if one is ever to be Well.
Maharaj would agree fully with the conclusions proven by Sapolsky’s research: the relative existence of almost all of humankind really is marked and marred by the “psychological tumult” that comes after entering into a “psychological state.”
Therefore, the main problem of humanity is neither a “too-little-dogma-tumult” or a “spiritual-malady-tumult.” It is a psychological tumult (which can be seen by any objective observer to be manifesting all around the globe in “religious / spiritual tumult”); yet the root of the planet’s ever-expanding “religious / spiritual tumult” is also evidence of the “psychological problems” of the fanatics involved in that form of tumult. The main problem is still psychological.
The solution? To eliminate any psychological problem, the mind must go, and the mind goes by eliminating all of the ideas and concepts and perceptions and misperceptions which have been accumulated and which are now stored there, an accumulation which can be summarized in one word: “beliefs.”
Discard every last belief and the mind ends. The content of the mind and the stress it induces are – as Sapolsky notes – merely an invention, invented long ago by members of the human species and now spread in the form of a global, mental / psychological pandemic to almost every human everywhere.
Be done with the bogus mind and what remains? The elemental brain remains, and through use of that instead of the “mind,” humans can abide as naturally and normally as every other species on the planet (none of which are being controlled by the ignorant-and-insane thoughts churned out constantly - without pause or interruption - by the “ever-active-minds” of the non-Realized masses.)
In that regard, these considerations were shared earlier today with a seeker in the NE section of the U.S. who just completed the online course and who is well along the way toward his goal of purging all of the content of the mind, though not yet there 100% of the way. So, why some continued churning?
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.”
Of course fear is one product generated by personality / personas. The other is desire. And the primary desires of all personalities / personas / ego-states are (1) a desire for continuity and (2) a desire to secretly control your every thought and word and action while allowing you to continue to think - and then continue to believe erroneously - that you are making conscious choices rather than being driven by the unconscious, hidden agendas of personalities.
Again, the task is always to find your REAL motive, which most never will. Which personality is lingering? Which is still at play? WHO is getting strokes or WHOSE ego is being made to feel good by any particular action? In other words, when the mind starts its deal, ask: "WHO cares? Which personality is wanting me to pay attention to whatever its thinking about?" If the persona is false, its agenda is false, but the relative consequences will be quite real. Yet seldom will people ever find their true agendas.
So when your mind starts rolling next time, find out which personas have an agenda, what the assumed and perceived and anticipated and desired “payoff” is for whatever you're doing or occupying yourself with, and then see if you can start finding "your" real motives - that is, your personas' motives - that are behind everything you do.
The end game is to be rid of the mind. The strategy: understand that the mind is nothing but an accumulation of erroneous, nonsense-based beliefs; you'll be rid of it by reaching a point where you have no beliefs at all, because that is all that the mind chatter which is still arising on occasion is about.
Lingering beliefs inspire thoughts, thoughts inspire words, and words drive action. The no-action, peaceful, and quiet state can only come . . .
in the absence of beliefs, thoughts, words, and actions and . . .
in the absence of belief in a do-er and . . .
in the absence of the doingness that typifies the go-do-zoom style of the non-Realized masses.
You do not need more of anything except more absence of.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Floyd Henderson's Website
Anthology of four books
Anthology of six books
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME ONE)
NOW ACCEPTING REQUESTS FOR FREE COPIES OF THE FOLLOWING EBOOKS:
A free copy of the 278-page eBook entitled
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
and / or
A free copy of the 267-page eBook entitled
"THE VISION"
is available to be sent to you and anyone else you choose.
The book will be emailed to you as a PFD attachment upon request.
Gift copies can also be sent to your friends and relatives. The eBook
can be read on any computer (using Adobe, for example) or can be
transferred to any electronic reader or tablet or phone for reading.
Open the attachment via the email on your iPad or Android tablet or
phone and begin reading.
[Please note: When the Direct Path Teaching Method is offered in conjunction with the Nisarga Yoga, something unique results when compared to what happens via the approach used by religions, spiritual movements, philosophies, ideologies, etc.:
rather than inviting seekers to learn more, the invitation here is to unlearn all; rather than offerings teachings, what is offered are unteachings; rather than offering to provide seekers more of anything, seekers will find that the process will take away everything. And via that process, the bliss of Your Original Nature will manifest and remain until mahasamadhi is taken.
To that end, the content of this book will seem radical to the seekers of more, but for those truly ready to be totally free and totally independent - and for those who are truly ready to abandon efforts to accumulate and to de-accumulate instead - the pointers in this book might be relevant.]
To receive your free copy, or to have us send a free copy to your friends or relatives, send your email address (or their addresses) to the following:
(Sorry, but for security reasons, we no longer have a clickable link. You will have to type in our gmail address above. By the way, your email addresses will never be used to contact you or your friends or relatives and email addresses will never be shared with anyone else.)
Simply state in your email that you want the book sent as a gift to you (or as a gift from you to as many people as you like. Copies are now ready to be sent.)
WHY YOU MUST BE EMPTY IF YOU WOULD BE FULL
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS
F.: From yesterday:
Sapolsky, and Maharaj in his own way as well, showed . . .
that only one species on the planet (namely, humans) suffer from “social and psychological tumult”;
that the tumult “has been invented by their own species”;
that the tumult is aggravated by the near-limitless hierarchies that manifest globally;
that the tumult is rooted in a psychological source (being generated by the warped, belief-filled minds of humans); and
that the tumult results in stress and discontentment and chaos and the instability that always accompanies dual-mindedness.
Both Maharaj (via the Understanding that came via conscious contact with the “inner guru” or the “inner resource”) and Sapolsky (via the understanding that came through the non-duality-supporting scientific research which Maharaj foretold) came to see that the problems of humanity are rooted in the “psychological tumult” that comes after entering into a “psychological state.”
The Ultimate Medicine for the treatment of the resultant Ultimate (and Psychological) Sickness - characterized by the “psychological tumult” that is generated after entering into a “psychological state” or states - must, therefore, involve . . .
(A) the elimination of the psychological states (the assumed ego-states / personas / personalities)
and
(B) the elimination of the mind (where the personalities are blooming and thriving as a result of being fertilized by the mental caca in the psychological cesspit there). That elimination must happen if one is ever to be Well.
Maharaj would agree fully with the conclusions proven by Sapolsky’s research: the relative existence of almost all of humankind really is marked and marred by the “psychological tumult” that comes after entering into a “psychological state.”
Therefore, the main problem of humanity is neither a “too-little-dogma-tumult” or a “spiritual-malady-tumult.” It is a psychological tumult (which can be seen by any objective observer to be manifesting all around the globe in “religious / spiritual tumult”); yet the root of the planet’s ever-expanding “religious / spiritual tumult” is also evidence of the “psychological problems” of the fanatics involved in that form of tumult. The main problem is still psychological.
The solution? To eliminate any psychological problem, the mind must go, and the mind goes by eliminating all of the ideas and concepts and perceptions and misperceptions which have been accumulated and which are now stored there, an accumulation which can be summarized in one word: “beliefs.”
Discard every last belief and the mind ends. The content of the mind and the stress it induces are – as Sapolsky notes – merely an invention, invented long ago by members of the human species and now spread in the form of a global, mental / psychological pandemic to almost every human everywhere.
Be done with the bogus mind and what remains? The elemental brain remains, and through use of that instead of the “mind,” humans can abide as naturally and normally as every other species on the planet (none of which are being controlled by the ignorant-and-insane thoughts churned out constantly - without pause or interruption - by the “ever-active-minds” of the non-Realized masses.)
In that regard, these considerations were shared earlier today with a seeker in the NE section of the U.S. who just completed the online course and who is well along the way toward his goal of purging all of the content of the mind, though not yet there 100% of the way. So, why some continued churning?
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.”
Of course fear is one product generated by personality / personas. The other is desire. And the primary desires of all personalities / personas / ego-states are (1) a desire for continuity and (2) a desire to secretly control your every thought and word and action while allowing you to continue to think - and then continue to believe erroneously - that you are making conscious choices rather than being driven by the unconscious, hidden agendas of personalities.
Again, the task is always to find your REAL motive, which most never will. Which personality is lingering? Which is still at play? WHO is getting strokes or WHOSE ego is being made to feel good by any particular action? In other words, when the mind starts its deal, ask: "WHO cares? Which personality is wanting me to pay attention to whatever its thinking about?" If the persona is false, its agenda is false, but the relative consequences will be quite real. Yet seldom will people ever find their true agendas.
So when your mind starts rolling next time, find out which personas have an agenda, what the assumed and perceived and anticipated and desired “payoff” is for whatever you're doing or occupying yourself with, and then see if you can start finding "your" real motives - that is, your personas' motives - that are behind everything you do.
The end game is to be rid of the mind. The strategy: understand that the mind is nothing but an accumulation of erroneous, nonsense-based beliefs; you'll be rid of it by reaching a point where you have no beliefs at all, because that is all that the mind chatter which is still arising on occasion is about.
Lingering beliefs inspire thoughts, thoughts inspire words, and words drive action. The no-action, peaceful, and quiet state can only come . . .
in the absence of beliefs, thoughts, words, and actions and . . .
in the absence of belief in a do-er and . . .
in the absence of the doingness that typifies the go-do-zoom style of the non-Realized masses.
You do not need more of anything except more absence of.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[Access previous posts in this series by using the "older posts" option] at the bottom of this page]
You can scroll down through the book section below if interested in receiving a free copy of the eBooks entitled:
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
or
"THE VISION"
"THE VISION"
Comments regarding the free eBook entitled “THE VISION”:
“My thanks to you and Andy.” – Andrew “Mac” McMaster
“Thanks so much for the book! And, by the way, it is brilliant and the most effective pointing that you have done. It has served to help clear the remaining blockages.” – Stan Cross
“Greatly appreciate having “THE VISION” added to my Henderson resource library that is situated on the right side of my bed for easy access! Eternally grateful for what was received and what was given.” – Robert Rigby
“ ‘THE VISION’ is such a well-written, condensed version of the Nisarga Yoga approach to understanding and enjoying Reality that I feel it can serve as a must-read ‘meditation guide’ for all earnest seekers.” – Andy Gugar, Jr.
Therefore, another movement or shift is happening here spontaneously after reflecting on the more than two decades since the teachings were first offered here and looking at the results of Maharaj sharing pointers in his loft and looking at the results of "Floyd" sharing pointers in this electronic loft: Looking objectively at his results, Maharaj's satsang method of sharing - in the end and by his own admission (only "one out of 10,000,000") - did not produce the intended outcome.
* * * * * * *
ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS
are available at
“My thanks to you and Andy.” – Andrew “Mac” McMaster
“Thanks so much for the book! And, by the way, it is brilliant and the most effective pointing that you have done. It has served to help clear the remaining blockages.” – Stan Cross
“Greatly appreciate having “THE VISION” added to my Henderson resource library that is situated on the right side of my bed for easy access! Eternally grateful for what was received and what was given.” – Robert Rigby
“ ‘THE VISION’ is such a well-written, condensed version of the Nisarga Yoga approach to understanding and enjoying Reality that I feel it can serve as a must-read ‘meditation guide’ for all earnest seekers.” – Andy Gugar, Jr.
SHIFTING THE FOCUS FROM THAT WHICH DOES NOT WORK TO THAT WHICH DOES, Part One
A "movement" or "shift" happened here that added another parallel to the many parallels in terms of the phenomenal "experiences" and the noumenal revelations that "Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj" and "Floyd" share in common. (Many visitors over the years have said that they also shared the same parallels with "Maharaj" and "Floyd" as well.)
In the case of "Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj" and "Floyd":
1. both grew up in very poor families 2. both moved to populated areas to seek employment opportunities 3. both exhibited business skills that led to their opening and operating many businesses and to their having a large number of employees working for them 4. both succeeded financially 5. both became attached to accumulating; 6. both married and had a family 7. both were initially religious 8. both moved away from organized religion and became interested in "spiritual" matters, finding and following the teachings of a big name teacher (or, in "Floyd's" case, many big name teachers) 9. both had highly religious wives who were quite displeased with the shift away from religion and toward "spirituality" 10. both began to feel empty in spite of all of their "spiritual seeking" and in spite of all of their accumulated "spiritual knowledge";
1. both grew up in very poor families 2. both moved to populated areas to seek employment opportunities 3. both exhibited business skills that led to their opening and operating many businesses and to their having a large number of employees working for them 4. both succeeded financially 5. both became attached to accumulating; 6. both married and had a family 7. both were initially religious 8. both moved away from organized religion and became interested in "spiritual" matters, finding and following the teachings of a big name teacher (or, in "Floyd's" case, many big name teachers) 9. both had highly religious wives who were quite displeased with the shift away from religion and toward "spirituality" 10. both began to feel empty in spite of all of their "spiritual seeking" and in spite of all of their accumulated "spiritual knowledge";
11. both began to de-accumulate after both saw that they could survive quite well on a fraction of the income they had been making
12. both had wives who were unhappy when the de-accumulation stage was entered and both had wives who became unhappy about their husbands' focus on non-duality and who blamed their unhappiness on no longer having a religious husband
(The facts be known, in both cases the unhappiness involved the fact that their husbands were no longer interested in - or willing - to work 80+ hours per week and that their husbands were no longer interested in accumulating wealth and possessions and providing the rich lifestyle to which their wives had grown accustomed)
13. both eventually came to see that the religious and spiritual states were also ego-states, and both saw that there are far more steps on the "path" to complete after reaching the religious and spiritual steps and after playing those roles which are the third of seven steps on the entire "path" 14. both "lost" their wives (one via "death," the other through divorce); 15. both accelerated their seeking; 16. both entered into the "forest dweller stage" 17. both Realized 18. both began to de-accumulate even more
19. both began sharing the teachings 20. for years, both answered questions in whatever order those questions were received, though both said that the movement from identification with the false "I" / "I's" involved an exact, step-wise manner of moving along a "path" that involved "going back" in the same (but reverse order) of the way they "came in" - that is, the way that the manifestation happened and the way that the consciousness was blocked through seven stages that resulted in their becoming identified solely with their false personas, with the content of the "mind," and eventually, with the body. But the most significant awareness that finally came to both after years of offering satsang and after having answered thousands and thousands of questions was this: After years of "Maharaj" offering satsang in his loft, and after years of "Floyd" offering satsang in meeting halls and in his home and via what one site visitor called "Floyd's electronic loft," this fact became obvious to both: "Maharaj" came to see in the 1970's and into 1980 and 1981 that his approach was not working and "Floyd" finally came to see the same.
13. both eventually came to see that the religious and spiritual states were also ego-states, and both saw that there are far more steps on the "path" to complete after reaching the religious and spiritual steps and after playing those roles which are the third of seven steps on the entire "path" 14. both "lost" their wives (one via "death," the other through divorce); 15. both accelerated their seeking; 16. both entered into the "forest dweller stage" 17. both Realized 18. both began to de-accumulate even more
19. both began sharing the teachings 20. for years, both answered questions in whatever order those questions were received, though both said that the movement from identification with the false "I" / "I's" involved an exact, step-wise manner of moving along a "path" that involved "going back" in the same (but reverse order) of the way they "came in" - that is, the way that the manifestation happened and the way that the consciousness was blocked through seven stages that resulted in their becoming identified solely with their false personas, with the content of the "mind," and eventually, with the body. But the most significant awareness that finally came to both after years of offering satsang and after having answered thousands and thousands of questions was this: After years of "Maharaj" offering satsang in his loft, and after years of "Floyd" offering satsang in meeting halls and in his home and via what one site visitor called "Floyd's electronic loft," this fact became obvious to both: "Maharaj" came to see in the 1970's and into 1980 and 1981 that his approach was not working and "Floyd" finally came to see the same.
21. Both saw that many who heard the teachings are not going to understand (Maharaj reporting that "only 1 in 100,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding)
22. both soon saw that even more than expected of those who heard the teachings were not going to understand (Maharaj modifying his "guesstimate" and reporting that "only 1 in 1,000,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding)
23. eventually both saw that even far more than expected of those who heard the teachings were not going to understand (Maharaj eventually concluding that "only 1 in 10,000,000 are going to 'get' this" understanding). And the failings were not the fault of seekers.
A "one -in-ten-million" estimate is proof that satsang was not working for most seekers, and the evidence here lately is proof of the same.
Both "Maharaj" and "Floyd" invited seekers to focus on the exact, step-wise "path." Yes, during satsang, "Maharaj" sometimes alluded to the steps while discussing them in no particular order - but he never once laid out the steps in the exact order in which they had to be completed. That was not his teachings style or approach.
Therefore, another movement or shift is happening here spontaneously after reflecting on the more than two decades since the teachings were first offered here and looking at the results of Maharaj sharing pointers in his loft and looking at the results of "Floyd" sharing pointers in this electronic loft: Looking objectively at his results, Maharaj's satsang method of sharing - in the end and by his own admission (only "one out of 10,000,000") - did not produce the intended outcome.
Looking objectively at the results here when using an "electronic loft" satsang method of sharing has not produced the intended outcome nearly as often as any of the three "face-to-face" methods used with seekers by which they have been led through the seven steps in order.
Here, the body is growing older, of course. Mahasamadhi could be taken today, or it could be taken in twenty years.
Obviously, that cannot be known. But the decision here has been made that whatever amount of the relative existence remains shall be spent in sharing the teachings in the ways that have been seen over the last 20+ years to be the most effective methods.
Looking back over the list of those that have truly received the understanding, it is seen that Robert R. read all of the books, then took the online Advaita course and then completed some face-to-face Skype sessions to receive the final clarifications required. It was seen that Mac read all of the books, completed the online course, and then attended a retreat where he was guided through the seven steps. Mac said that the online course work inspired him to attend the retreat in order to be able to receive the final "pieces." It was seen that Andy Gugar, Jr. read all of the books, then came here for a retreat and was taken through the seven steps in order, and then returned once more for the final clarifications required. After reviewing the shifts that happened with him after attending two retreats, he reaffirmed this past week his commitment to helping spread the non-duality, nisarga understanding as presented here. As a result of seeing what has "worked" during the last 20+ years of sharing the non-duality understanding - and seeing what had not "worked" as well - changes will be made.
SHIFTING THE FOCUS FROM THAT WHICH DOES NOT WORK TO THAT WHICH DOES, Part Two
Looking back over the list of those that have truly received the understanding, it is seen that Robert R. read all of the books, then took the online Advaita course and then completed some face-to-face Skype sessions to receive the final clarifications required. It was seen that Mac read all of the books, completed the online course, and then attended a retreat where he was guided through the seven steps. Mac said that the online course work inspired him to attend the retreat in order to be able to receive the final "pieces." It was seen that Andy Gugar, Jr. read all of the books, then came here for a retreat and was taken through the seven steps in order, and then returned once more for the final clarifications required. After reviewing the shifts that happened with him after attending two retreats, he reaffirmed this past week his commitment to helping spread the non-duality, nisarga understanding as presented here. As a result of seeing what has "worked" during the last 20+ years of sharing the non-duality understanding - and seeing what had not "worked" as well - changes will be made.
SHIFTING THE FOCUS FROM THAT WHICH DOES NOT WORK TO THAT WHICH DOES, Part Two
In "Part One," examples were given of seekers that were led to Realization not by satsang but by following the various protocols outlined farther down this page which provide the understanding in the step-wise, orderly, required fashion which moves seekers along a "path" that is as prescribed by Maharaj ... "going back" in the "reverse order" by which the consciousness manifested and became blocked.
However, conversations with some that just read the majority of the books have revealed that they certainly seem to have grasped the understanding and Realized as well.
As a result of seeing what has "worked" during the last 20+ years of sharing the non-duality understanding - and seeing what has "not worked" as well - changes are being made.
There are seven specific steps that happen when awareness-energy is "pulled" into a cycle of manifestation. When that energy manifests as conscious-energy, that formerly pure and unadulterated energy becomes "corrupted" (or "blocked" from seeing clearly) via programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, and brainwashing. Soon, there is a belief in the not-Real as a result of seven degrees of separation from an understanding of the Real.
Using the method that was also employed by his contemporaries - a method which focused on offering non-duality pointers via satsang - Maharaj addressed questions in the order in which they were received. He might receive a question from a seeker at the third step and his reply would include what amounted to an invitation to move to the fourth step. The next question might come from a seeker at the first step, and the reply would include an invitation to move to the second step.
The information offered to the second seeker would seemingly contradict what was offered to the first seeker, so visitors who have come here for decades have asked questions which showed how confused they were by the fact that Maharaj's statements to each visitor in his loft were "level-appropriate" yet were provided in no precise order, resulting in what seemed to be an inconsistent message.
So the process overall was confusing in that
seekers were told to follow the "path back" in the same way that they "came in," except in reverse order,
but
pointers were not given in a specific, step-wise order at all.
Maharaj did recognize the seven steps that are taught here, but by offering the teachings in an order that was dictated by the order in which questions were received from seekers who were at different steps on the "path," the result was this:
a pointer about moving beyond the fourth step might be followed by a pointer about moving beyond the first step, and that pointer might be followed by a pointer about how to move beyond the sixth step.
The same was done on this site for seven years. The result is a collection of 1,800 or so essays discussing almost every non-duality topic that can be discussed, and the search button on the top right side of this page will now allow seekers with a question about a specific topic to find an explanation. That method, however, will never provide the manner in which the seven steps on the "path" must be transmitted and received in order to Realize Fully.
An objective study of the history here of more than twenty years of offering non-duality pointers reveals this: seekers that were given pointers in the exact order in which they needed to receive them were the ones that Realized.
They read the books, then they completed the online course and / or completed seven Skype or telephone sessions or came here for a retreat (or watched the downloadable DVD version of an actual retreat, available below).
Some found that which they were seeking by reading the author's book that deal with non-duality subject matter. Via all of those venues, the steps are taught in their proper order.
The essays available on this site will remain for those interested in searching for a discussion of a particular non-duality topic without charge, but the focus here until mahasamadhi is taken is going to be on offering the teachings in the step-wise fashion that has been seen to work.
THESE PAPERBACK BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON.COM
(Four by Floyd Henderson and two by Dennis Waite. Click the picture for more information or to order)
(Four by Floyd Henderson and two by Dennis Waite. Click the picture for more information or to order)
* * * * * * *
ALL EBOOK AND PAPERBACK VERSION OF HENDERSON'S NON-DUALITY BOOKS
and
RECOVERY LITERATURE
and
FINANCIAL BOOKS
are available at www.floydhenderson.com
Within minutes of purchase you can be reading any of the eBooks below on your mobile devices, including an iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, Android phone, laptop, home computer or on a Kindle reader. For Apple and Android, either download the eBook directly onto your device or email the eBook file to your mobile device and open the file from your email. For Kindles or other similar devices, use your USB cable to transfer the eBook to your reader.
FOR THOSE SEEKING FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE NON-DUALITY UNDERSTANDING, AS NOTED ABOVE, SOME SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED BY USING THE METHODS BELOW, OR A COMBINATION OF THE METHODS:
International buyers: note the separate option for those outside the continental U.S.
II. BY READING the explanations offered in the collection of non-duality books that are available on this site and at www.floydhenderson.com.
III. 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
IV. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.
V. BY ARRANGING a one-hour session via Skype or telephone with Floyd. (Skype is a free service.)
Click the button to pay and you will be contacted to arrange a date and time for the call.
VI. ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS are available at
Floyd Henderson's Website
are available at www.floydhenderson.com
Within minutes of purchase you can be reading any of the eBooks below on your mobile devices, including an iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, Android phone, laptop, home computer or on a Kindle reader. For Apple and Android, either download the eBook directly onto your device or email the eBook file to your mobile device and open the file from your email. For Kindles or other similar devices, use your USB cable to transfer the eBook to your reader.
FOR THOSE SEEKING FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE NON-DUALITY UNDERSTANDING, AS NOTED ABOVE, SOME SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED BY USING THE METHODS BELOW, OR A COMBINATION OF THE METHODS:
WAYS THAT SEEKERS HAVE REALIZED:
I. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk, Seven-Hour Video (DVD) Set of an advaita retreat, or the downloadable file version. To find out more or to purchase the DVD or downloadable computer file version of the retreat, DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat
I. BY WATCHING the 4-Disk, Seven-Hour Video (DVD) Set of an advaita retreat, or the downloadable file version. To find out more or to purchase the DVD or downloadable computer file version of the retreat, DVD or Downloadable computer file versions of the Four-Day Advaita Retreat
International buyers: note the separate option for those outside the continental U.S.
II. BY READING the explanations offered in the collection of non-duality books that are available on this site and at www.floydhenderson.com.
III. 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
IV. BY ATTENDING an Advaitin retreat with floyd and being guided through all seven steps. For details of the retreats offered, please visit the retreat information site.
V. BY ARRANGING a one-hour session via Skype or telephone with Floyd. (Skype is a free service.)
Click the button to pay and you will be contacted to arrange a date and time for the call.
VI. ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS are available at
Floyd Henderson's Website
Floyd Henderson's Website
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE: A Seven-Step Journey to Reality
CONSCIOUSNESS / AWARENESS
FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS
THE FINAL UNDERSTANDING
THE ADVANCED SEEKERS' SERIES
Anthology of four books
THE BLISSFUL ABIDANCE SERIES
Anthology of six books
SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ AND HIS EVOLUTION
THE FINAL FIFTEEN TOPICS DISCUSSED BY SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
A TWELVE-STEP JOURNEY TO SELF-TRANSFORMATION
For more information on this book, or to purchase a copy now, click:
A GUIDE FOR WORKING THE STEPS (IN THE MANNER USED BY THE FOUNDERS)
THE TWELVE STEPS AND ADVAITA / NON-DUALITY: A 21-DAY PLAN FOR A PSYCHIC CHANGE
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME ONE)
SELF-TRANSFORMATION MEDITATION GUIDE (VOLUME TWO)
WHY NISARGA YOGA IN ADDITION TO THE ADVAITA TEACHINGS?
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE via the Non-Duality Teachings and the Nisarga Yoga
YOUR ORIGINAL NATURE
GOING CRAZY / GOING SANE
INSTABILITY / INSANITY: WHAT THE ADVAITA TEACHINGS CAN (AND CANNOT) ADDRESS
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS "PEACE OF MIND" (THERE IS ONLY PEACE IF YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND)
FREEDOM FROM SHIFTING BETWEEN STATES OF HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS
THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS / THE ULTIMATE MEDICINE
PROGRAMMING, CONDITIONING, DOMESTICATION, AND ACCULTURATION (THE SOURCES OF THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS & THE NON-DUALITY TREATMENT)
"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?"
THE MYTH OF "DEATH"
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS: THE SIMPLICITY OF REALIZATION
FINDING REAL LOVE IN AN UNREAL WORLD
CASTING LIGHT ON THE DARK SIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS
OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF BEING TOTALLY INDEPENDENT
THE NON-DUALITY POINTERS OFFERED BY YESHU'A ("JESUS THE CHRIST")
NOW ACCEPTING REQUESTS FOR FREE COPIES OF THE FOLLOWING EBOOKS:
A free copy of the 278-page eBook entitled
"GOOD vs. EVIL?" or "IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and INSANITY?"
and / or
A free copy of the 267-page eBook entitled
"THE VISION"
is available to be sent to you and anyone else you choose.
[Please note: When the Direct Path Teaching Method is offered in conjunction with the Nisarga Yoga, something unique results when compared to what happens via the approach used by religions, spiritual movements, philosophies, ideologies, etc.:
rather than inviting seekers to learn more, the invitation here is to unlearn all; rather than offerings teachings, what is offered are unteachings; rather than offering to provide seekers more of anything, seekers will find that the process will take away everything. And via that process, the bliss of Your Original Nature will manifest and remain until mahasamadhi is taken.
To that end, the content of this book will seem radical to the seekers of more, but for those truly ready to be totally free and totally independent - and for those who are truly ready to abandon efforts to accumulate and to de-accumulate instead - the pointers in this book might be relevant.]
To receive your free copy, or to have us send a free copy to your friends or relatives, send your email address (or their addresses) to the following:
(Sorry, but for security reasons, we no longer have a clickable link. You will have to type in our gmail address above. By the way, your email addresses will never be used to contact you or your friends or relatives and email addresses will never be shared with anyone else.)
Simply state in your email that you want the book sent as a gift to you (or as a gift from you to as many people as you like. Copies are now ready to be sent.)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE ADVAITIN
WHEN ONLY THREE HOURS OF MANIFESTATION REMAIN (THE "FINAL" TALKS OF FLOYD HENDERSON)
I AM THAT (vs. "This Is Who I Think I Am")
QUOTATIONS AND POINTERS DEALING WITH NON-DUALITY, ADVAITA, NISARGA YOGA, AND MORE
DANCING LIGHTLY
THE PATH TO FREEDOM VS. THE PATH TO MISERY
THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS PERSONAL (INCLUDING YOU AND INCLUDING GOD)
LIBERATION (ATTAINING FREEDOM FROM PERSONALITY VIA REALIZATION)
WHY YOU MUST BE EMPTY IF YOU WOULD BE FULL
FREEDOM FROM BELIEFS (Believers, Non-Believers, and "No-Belief-ers")
WHEN REALITY IS OVERLAID ON THE RELATIVE
THE RELATIVE RESULTS OF RETURNING TO "THE CHILD IGNORANCE STAGE" OR "THE CHILD NO-KNOWING STATE"
WHAT BLISS IS AND WHAT BLISS IS NOT
THE TWICE-STOLEN NECKLACE MURDERS
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS
LESSONS IN NON-DUALITY FROM TRAVELS IN SOUTH AFRICA
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FIRST STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SECOND STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE THIRD STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FOURTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE FIFTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SIXTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
A SERIES OF ESSAYS DISCUSSING THE SEVENTH STEP ON THE SEVEN-STEP PATH TO REALIZATION
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (RECOVERING WHAT RELIGIONS LOST)
IT'S ALL BULLSHIT (AND WHY KNOWING IT SETS YOU FREE)
