TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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To continue with the reply to the question, "So what else is this deal all about?" some answers have been already been offered in the ebook WHEN ONLY THREE HOURS OF MANIFESTATION REMAIN (The "Final" Talks Of Floyd Henderson)
Today, answer #9 to the question "What is this non-duality deal all about anyway?" is this:
The Relative Existence Will Never Be Stable, But That Which You Have Always Been Is Permanent
When Maharaj knew that the taking of mahasamadhi was approaching, his sharings became pithy, terse, concise and succinct. Too, if it became clear that here only three hours of manifestation remained for sharing, then only the most central and most essential non-duality pointers would be offered in a condensed version, compressed into what could be delivered in that limited period.
So far, the following pointers have been offered for consideration:
1. Find the simplest version of these teachings. Do not complicate the process.
2. Filter your "ultimate objective" by sifting out all unnatural aims and all supernatural ambitions, allowing only that which leads to the ability to abide naturally and spontaneously and unaffectedly and effortlessly to pass through the Nisargan sieve of realization which can strain out anything and everything that is not normal and ordinary and instinctive and innate. Then see how simple the relative existence can become via Realization and natural abidance.
3. End all efforts to replace former "bad" labels and roles with "new and improved and upgraded and noble labels and roles." Then, being label-free and identity-free, the remainder of the abidance can happen naturally, simply, sanely, and rationally. Meaning?
4. Do not reject one set of labels and roles and false identities for another set of the same. (Yes, that is Advaita Vedantin heresy. So be it.) Labels are the cancer on the relative existence. If you have a cancer-ridden lung and the doctor recommends a transplant using a lung that is also infected with cancer cells, would you think that sane?
Why reject labels and roles to only replace them with other labels or roles?
Why go through all the hassle and debate and philosophical work of finding out if you are . . .
an infinite self, An Infinite Self, the essence, the Absolute Reality, Divinity, Atman, Consciousness, Awareness, a Supreme Self, The Most Superior Self, The One Who Is at One with God, or - in some cases - even God . . .
if in the end you are to see the Nothingness . . .
if you are, in fact, to understand that "wisdom is knowing that you are nothing?"
The point is offered here often that everything in the relative is much ado about nothing. So is "the path" and "the journey" and "Realization" as well if they lead to anything other than a means by which the relative existence can unfold in a sane and logical and natural manner after following the "path" to its end, after completing the "journey," after realizing. (More Advaitin heresy, right? But that is another of the "final" points which you are invited to take away from all of the talks and writings.)
5. Next, understand that the relative existence will never be stable but that . . .
a. not only can you be stable
but also that . . .
b. that which you have always been is permanent. How?
There is energy / matter, and energy / matter has always been. It cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed. Consciousness is merely one of many forms of energy. It can manifest within a space and it can unmanifest. Or it might never manifest within a space. Either way, it is just a part of the vastness of the energy / matter contained within this universe (and in all other universes as well).
Consider as an example one of the near-infinite number of dualistic aspects of the relative existence - such as "healthiness" or "an absence of healthiness" - and see that the relative will always be marked by duality:
This speck, called "floyd" by some, was enjoying his health which allowed him to operate a European tour company, to climb the hills of Tuscany, to hike to the peaks of several Swiss Alps, and to walk the streets of all of the major cities - and many of the smaller villages - of The Netherlands, Germany, France, Austria, the U.K. and Italy.
Then certain symptoms appeared which indicated that an unhealthy condition had manifested. The doctor's word: "cancer." Time was spent in treatment and healing, at which point it was determined that the message which the inner resource had been sending for years should finally be acknowledged.
As a result came retirement from "secure" employment in order to share these teachings / unteachings and to write about the non-duality understanding that had come. Within ten years, dozens of books had been written - and scores of rejection slips had been received - with only three having been published in that first decade of writing.
As always, the writings happened in the early morning hours, and the state of health which had returned allowed many hours each day to be enjoyed on the lake, allowed for motorcycle rides through forested areas, and allowed long periods of time to be passed in the woods in many states throughout the U.S.
Then came the day at the end of October in 2005 when a deer ran in front of the motorcycle that was clipping along at 70 m.p.h. (or over 112 k.p.h.) It was noted earlier that more details would be provided.
The crash resulted in a concussion; in seventeen bones being broken (including both the fibula and tibia which were broken in half); in both shoulders being dislocated; and in the hips being dislocated. It took nearly a year for whatever healing was going to happen, but there would never be "full recovery." In spite of that, the next five years of the relative existence passed with considerable enjoyment, traveling again throughout Europe but this time for pleasure only, accompanied by a friend from college with whom I had been reunited.
Then in March of 2010, the health declined again. The diagnosis was that neither the heart nor the lungs were functioning in a normal fashion. As is the case with all things relative, there were "good" days and "bad" days until October of 2011 when the crash came. The diagnosis: there was a 95% blockage of the LAD; there was internal hemorrhaging which dropped the red blood cell count from 15 to 7;
angioplasty opened some arteries and the placement of a stent addressed the major blockage; but then the use of blood thinners aggravated the internal hemorrhaging, resulting in a hemoglobin count of 4.7 by the time that readmission to the hospital was required; and there was also, as a result of anemia, the deterioration of a valve that has been generating a murmur since the age of fifteen.
Now, the state of the stent and the blood either clotting or not clotting much unfold as it will since thinners cannot be used. So it is.
The point is, if you review what happened in terms of that one aspect of the relative existence alone - namely, the fluctuations that happened in terms of "healthiness" and "an absence of healthiness" - it should be clear that nothing in the relative will be stable. All is in flux. The only constant is change. Moreover, the similar relative events will cycle as well. Doubt that? Consider the global chaos that began in 2008 when banks and financial institutions began crashing. Then consider what Maharaj shared in this exchange nearly four decades ago:
Questioner: "I may not want to change. My life is good enough as it is."
Maharaj: "You say so because you have not seen how painful is the life you live. You are like a child sleeping with a lollypop in its mouth. You may feel happy for a moment by being totally self-centered, but it is enough to have a good look at human faces to perceive the universality of suffering. Even your own happiness is so vulnerable and short-lived, at the mercy of a bank-crash, or a stomach ulcer. It is just a moment of respite, a mere gap between two sorrows. Real happiness is not vulnerable, because it does not depend on circumstances."
But as far as you are concerned, all that can happen in terms of instability is that you can be blocked (via programming, conditioning, domestication, and acculturation) from knowing the fact that you are that which can only be stable and that can never be unstable; however, in more cases than not among the non-realized masses, persons reach a point where their relative existence seems as if it is taking place on a runaway train, and often it seems that the result is one train wreck after another.
The remedy offered here? Reach the destination at the end of the "path" and be done with it all. Reaching the end of the "path" is not about staying "there." The invitation is to leave the train and to abide naturally and calmly, enjoying whatever the relative might offer that you can enjoy. For those who have seemingly completed the "journey" and now believe that they are "there" is evidence of either distortion, delusion, or dissociation. While manifested, You are "here." Enjoy here. Enjoy now. It is the only time and place during which you will be able to enjoy.
Maharaj said: "Like a traveller nearing his destination and collecting his luggage, he leaves the train without regret."
The invitation is to leave the speeding, unstable train on which most are presently riding. Then, the remainder of the manifestation can unfold as if you are standing on a hill next to the railroad track. You will merely watch the trains race by, and you observe that sometimes a train passes by safely and that sometimes it crashes and burns. Either way, you are no longer aboard. As both the witness and as Pure Witnessing, You are stable as all that is variable and shifting and unstable happens as if you are viewing it all from a platform where Reality has been overlaid on the relative. Effort and travel and "journeying" are no longer required.
Maharaj: "The jnani is already dead to name and shape. How can their loss affect him? The man in the train travels from place to place, but the man off the train goes nowhere, for he is not bound for a destination. He has nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to become."
Understand all of the above and then you will know that, though the relative existence will never be stable, that which you have always been is permanent. The part most miss? Before manifestation, there is no knowing, no "one" to know, non "one" to enjoy or hate anything.
The awareness is not aware of itself unless it manifests as consciousness and only then if the consciousness leads to an awareness of awareness. Post-manifestation, there will be no conscious-of-ness and there will be no aware-of-ness (just as the case was prior to manifestation).
So why realize? So that you can observe the relative instability for now from an unaffected and totally stable position of neutrality.
To be continued.
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