TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. [See the offer in gold text following this post for details on how you can watch a retreat on video which includes a detailed discussion of all seven of the steps on the path as used by Maharaj]
2. Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns. See the green text after today's post for the full meaning and implications of that.
3. A new video ("Number Ten: Awakening Together Satsang, March 2018") has now been added in the far right column of this page, offering the opportunity to view a recent 2018 satsang session with Floyd being interviewed by Regina and Jacqueline of "The Awakening Together Group." (See the details in the blue text after this post.)
4. My assistant found two paperback copies of the book co-authored with Mark Houston, A Twelve-Step Journey to SELF-Transformation, a potentially-effective gift for someone struggling with an addiction to alcohol (or to anything else, really). The book lists for $19.95 + Priority Mail shipping. To purchase, you may use the donate button at the top right of this page and include a note that the $27.60 is for the Twelve-Step book. Regrets to international visitors but this is only available within the U.S. because international shipping rates are prohibitive and time-consuming and cannot be tracked.
So, to reach the Fourth Step is to reach a point where one is freed of false identifications, beginning with being free of body and mind and personality identifications.
In upcoming posts, I’ll be sharing my take on those three, sharing quotations from my journal writings, blog writings, and book writings over what will be in three more months, three decades of sharing non-dual pointers.
Again, the early approach dealt with the seven-step approach and the later writings dealt with the four-step approach, so some quotes from both of those stages will be shared. (Later, quotations from Maharaj will be shared and then some quotations from a man I’ve known for many years, a non-dual writer in the U.K. that has reached an international audience for decades).
WITNESSING AND THE ABSOLUTE
from
Floyd Henderson
On Subject-Object Witnessing
• Subject-Object (S-O) witnessing still involves duality (at least as far as the not-totally-unobstructed consciousness "sees" it). I, the consciousness which was once obstructed but no longer is, can be aware of the fact that I am not that which you think you are seeing when you look at me and that I am not that which the culture would label me;
• yet from your S-O manner of viewing, that still involves one "seeing" something else, false or not, such as: "I see the mirage and I know it is not real" or "I cannot live with myself/this self anymore."
• Those observations still involve perceived dualities. Not until the next step of Pure Witnessing does subject-object witnessing end and the witnessing of the unicity finally happen.
• At that point, when the consciousness is totally unobstructed, all that was thought to be either "subject" or "object" is witnessed to be One, to have always been One, and to forever be One.
• In other words, to shift from this stage to the next, it must be seen that (as the understanding of non-duality becomes clearer) the talk of "subject" and "object" at this level will have to give way to "subject only," that is, to knowing "that everlasting, timeless, imperishable Subject."
On Pure Witnessing / The “True Self”
• There are seven-steps on the “journey” to realization. The witnessing stages are two of the final “degrees of separation from reality” that must be transitioned, and both the witness and the Pure Witness must be “experienced.”
• However, it is a necessity to transition each of “the seven degrees of separation” for “full realization” to happen. Most on any "path" stop at the third stage (the "religious persona stage" or the "spiritual persona stage") and never complete the journey to the full understanding.
• Shifting beyond object witnessing sets the stage for understanding the nothingness. Then, the True Self can come to know the "everything” . . . the Oneness of it all . . . the Truth. The actual unicity beyond the imagined multiplicity is understood.
• The Pure Witness—the True Self—can then know the Oneness that comes with the awareness that a tiny "building-block" of energy-consciousness is all there is, and all supposed differences are merely appearances that result from energy vibrating at varied frequencies.
• From the platform of the Pure Witness, the beingness and the non-beingness can be understood and the "state" of Absolute rest and peace can be seen. Then, the remainder of the relative existence can be passed in the "I Am," in the "Is-ness," in the Pure Witness "mode," in the AS IF style, and—finally—by abiding as the Absolute.
On The Absolute
• Yet the goal here is not to encourage you to rejoice in that beingness. The goal is to know that beingness, yes, but to transcend even that and then to merge into the Absolute, to allow all ego-states and identities to vanish in the process, and then to abide as the Absolute for the remainder of the manifestation.
• Persons, even though they take themselves to be the roles they play, are no different from the realized. All that is happening is that consciousness manifested, became obstructed by concepts, and has not been unobscured (person) or it manifested, became obscured, and has been unobscured (realized).
• The exact same providence awaits those who take themselves to be persons as well as those who know “What They Really Are”: the ultimate fate of all manifested consciousness is that it will unmanifest and be re-absorbed into the pool of universal consciousness.
• Fall not into the trap of idolizing the consciousness. It is nothing more than one of many forms of energy in the universe.
• The guaranteed cycling of conscious-energy means that those who believe themselves to be persons will eventually be free of all concerns, just as is the case with the realized.
• When the consciousness unmanifests and merges into that vast pool of energy called “The Absolute,” it knows nothing.
• Ultimately, therefore, it is irrelevant if that speck of consciousness when manifested knew itself or if it mistook itself for the roles that the obstructed consciousness leads persons to think they are.
• The only difference happens NOW:
• Persons (the non-realized) suffer chaos and emotional intoxication while the realized witness and feel;
• however, after the consciousness is no longer manifested, the result is the same for those that did not realized during the manifestation as it is for those that did:
• consciousness will be unmanifested and unknowing.
• As Szent-Gyorgyi said, “What drives life is . . . a little electric current, set up by the sunshine.” If that fact is understood, then what room remains for arrogance, for ego, or for ego-states assumed as identities?
BACK TO THE ABSOLUTE:
• If you complete this "journey," you’re going to see exactly, step-by-step, how you got from the Absolute state to the false belief that you’re a body. And you’re going to see how to get from believing that you are a body to realization of the Absolute. And seeing that complete cycle, then you’re going to understand all the cycles (including how the "cycling in" happens and how the "cycling out" happens).
• You will understand each step of the "way in," all the way from the Absolute to body identification; then you will understand why the way to realizing (and abiding as) the Absolute happens only when each of those steps is taken again, in reverse order.
• Only from the conditioned mind of an assumed 'self' can self-importance come. When the last ‘who’ disappears, the understanding of THAT appears. The question is not, 'Who am I?' The question is, 'What am I'?”
• If it's entropy and chaos and change you find unacceptable, then know that you are the Absolute. Know that you are fixed, immutable, ineradicable, constant, invariable. All that you perceive as being variable is misperception, merely fiction imagined via your "variable mind."
• I Am prior to beingness, prior to consciousness, and even prior to non-beingness. I have passed eternity being That, but for now I just happen to be in movement with other waves and particles of energy during this present temporary cycling into manifestation.
• This "floyd" is nothing more than the result a cosmic accident, an accident that was facilitated along the way by an act of friction. Wherefore "pride"?
To be continued.
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Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "God," the "Son of God," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns.
THE EXPLANATION
If looked at as nouns, they point to illusions and are, therefore, a total waste of time to even discuss; if looked at as verbs which are resulting in certain sane but rare behaviors among humanity, then they are worthy of some attention during the relative existence.
Meaning? There are members of certain groups who say things such as "My concept of God in the past was of a weak God, an absentee God, A Santa Claus-type God, a mean, punishing, vindictive God, etc. Today, I am in close contact with a loving and caring God whom I worship and praise and glorify and give thanks to."
The reply to that usually goes like this: "If you are in contact with a God that wants to be worshipped and praised and glorified, then you're dealing with someone like yourself - a narcissist - and hanging out with narcissists will never bring an end to your narcissism (that narcissism evidenced by the fact that you think you are "godly").
Next, in the phrase 'loving and caring God,' any supposed God that truly had her or his act together would tell you that the totally irrelevant part of that phrase is 'God' and that the only part that is relevant is the "loving and caring" part.
"That is, a non-narcissistic god / goddess would say, "I care not an iota about being worshipped and praised and glorified by you or anyone else. How arrogant and insecure and needy would I have to be to want that? Forget the man-made, dreamed up noun 'God' and focus on the 'God as a verb' understanding and then go forth and let loving and caring be verbs - not adjectives - and let them generate the act of love and the act of caring and let those actions manifest through you."
Yeshu'a (Jesus) and Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis were spot on:
"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within"
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
--Yeshu'a (Jesus)
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places
but are states of mind, nothing more than
concepts dreamed up by men."
--Pope John Paul II
"There is no hell."
--Pope Francis, the current pope
in an interview with journalist Eugenio Scalfari,
a writer used by the Pope to issue off the record
teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium.
[That said, would that the popes who have shown the courage to reject a core concept of their dogma - namely, "hell" - would find the additional courage required to question the very existence of their institution in light of the centuries-long cover-up of their history of raping children and in light of the mental and emotional and psychological scarring of billions of their members past and present.
And that need for courage also applies as questions need to be asked about why so many other sky cults are still being supported and allowed to continue to exist as well. When certain types of programming and conditioning have been shown to blind the masses, they should end. Will they? Not likely. Why?
Because what the masses think and say and do is most influenced by the international crime families which hold sway over the masses as criminals conduct their planet-wide operations. What are the major international crime families and which are the most influential and have the largest memberships?
The Mafia / La Cosa Nostra; the Catholic Church (with it 1.2 billion followers) whose Vatican Bank worked for decades with the Mafia while laundering mob earnings (for a 15% all-profit charge by the Bank); Protestant and Evangelical Churches (with over 1.2 billion followers) like the one I was raised in where the youth director molested and sexually assaulted young girls; big business which has long created environments in which people have been abused; powerful political bodies like the U.S. Congress, etc., etc., etc.)
With all of those crime families, neither the followers nor the leadership ever voluntarily step down or shut down their criminal activities. Be they gangs, organized crime families, religions, big business, politicians, etc., they all want control and they all want power and they all want money, and nothing internal will interfere with the driving forces at play.
The masses must demand that all those in charge must step down and their groups and institutions must shut down, and there's the real problem because the continuation of their crimes are enabled not as much by the people running such crime organizations as they are enabled by the masses of people who - wanting some perceived "payoff" - remain involved with them and give them money and support them and aid and abet the continued existence of those criminal enterprises and thus facilitate the ability of church criminals and political criminals and other types of criminals to continue to commit their crimes.]
Here's
the direct link to the VIDEO VERSION
of the "Awakening Together" satsang session with Regina and Jacqueline referenced earlier, 18 MARCH 2018
If preferred, here's
the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION
of that session.
