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.
Some prefer paperback books even if they have to wait a day or so to
receive it and have to pay more for a printed book and its shipment.
Now, 10 paperback books by Henderson are in print and are available
through Amazon. See the end of this post in red text for details.
5. Would you like to have us send to someone as a gift from you a copy of any ebook in our inventory? See the offer in purple text at the end of this post.
HOW TO (AND WHAT TO) REALIZE
So what else is to be realized about how to seek and realize and with whom to seek in order to realize?
BB. Take caution before committing to one particular guide or another to lead you along “the path.”
More often than not, the paths offered by most priests and preachers and imams and rabbis and cult leaders and gurus and philosophers and ideologues and life coaches and 12-steppers and their sponsors – "well meaning" or not – is a path which ends in total darkness or in a wilderness or over the edge of a cliff.
[How does the message here differ from the message most of them offer? Most of them want you to believe what they believe. Most of them do not want to you question anything they say. Here, this disclaimer is posted several times throughout each year:
Here, there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, domesticated, indoctrinated and brainwashed to believe so that you can be free, period.
Here, it is not about being taught what "floyd" knows and is not about learning what floyd knows or about believing what "floyd" believes. Here, it is about being un-taught, about un-learning, about discarding all beliefs (which are actually nothing more than the accumulation of the learned ignorance which is stored in every mind) except among the few that have realized and been freed from the effects of the warped, fiction-filled mind and the ignorance stored therein.]
Wise consumers either make effective use of advertizing or see through deceptive advertizing.
At times, the deliverers of advertizing may be passing on what they know to be flawed or totally untrue information which they know full well is not true. What drives that behavior? Their greed or economic fear or their unchecked desire to control the thoughts and words and actions of all who will listen to them or for political gain or a host of other motives.
At other times, the deliverers of advertizing may mean well but might be passing on flawed or totally untrue information which was given to them and which they believe to be true.
Similarly, priests and preachers and imams and rabbis and cult leaders and gurus and philosophers and ideologues and life coaches and 12-steppers and their sponsors put out all sorts of bogus ads about what they believe, about what their followers should believe, about what they promise they can deliver, about what they claim they can do, about what their group can do for every person who joins their ranks, and . . . yada-yada-yada, blah-blah-blah to infinity.
Most humans are actually pedigree, pure-breed, full-bloodied parrots, simply regurgitating what they have been told, spewing out the words and concepts and ideas (a.k.a., beliefs) which have been passed down to them via ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, etc. and which they have unquestioningly accepted as truth and are now passing on as if their false beliefs are undeniable facts which are never to be deemed suspicious and never to be doubted or questioned.
Actually, truth-in-lending would require that they rename their venues and call them,
Parrots Anonymous
The Temple of Parroting
The Parrot Mosque
The Parrot Cult
The Church of Holy Parroting
The Church of Holy Parroting
The Parrot Political Party
The Cult of Parrots
and
The Parroting Ashram.
Early on, even Maharaj said that he unquestioningly did things which his guru told him to do even though he knew they were not spot on or were a total waste. He gave as one example his guru’s instructions to assign mantras to each seeker. Later, he would begin to quietly break with many of his guru’s directions before he finally acknowledged that he was going to go his own way.
Did Maharaj intentionally mislead persons, or was he merely allowing his programming, conditioning, and other influencers to drive his thoughts and words and actions? Was he, early on, actually functioning more from a sleep state than from a totally awake state? The evidence suggests, yes.
Early on, under the influence of his guru, he offered a Hindu / non-dual, compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine.
Later on during the days of his I Am That talks, it came about that - under the influence of Westerners in their “Spiritual Giant” mode - he offered a spirituality / non-dual, compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine.
Eventually, he realized that the Ultimate Sickness is a “mind-sickness” so he cast aside both of those approaches and offered a psychology / non-dual compounded version of the Ultimate Medicine.
As he changed his message and his approach time and again, was he a con; or, is it possible, that his level of understanding was a “work in progress,” evolving as his experiences led him to make the shifts he made.
Did he engage in false advertizing early by using the name “Nisargadatta?” Yes, but without malice and without consciously running a scam or con. He did pepper his earlier talks with pointers from the Nisarga yoga, but not use that yoga consistently and exclusively in those early days.
Had he been accurate, he would have gone through a series of names / advertizings. The wise can look at the focus of his sharings and can see exactly which teaching method he was using and which yoga he was incorporating into his teachings and can see that a pure Nisargan message was not always being offered uniquely.
Had he been totally accurate, he would have used the following names to advertize what was being offered first in talks offered in his bidi shop and later in talks offered in his loft.
Instead of “Nisargadatta,” he would have called himself during his period of evolution, “Guru-bhaktidatta and later on Bhaktidatta and after that “Jnanadatta” and only later on “Nisargadatta.”
Was he consciously misleading seekers? No. As with so many priests and preachers and imams and rabbis and cult leaders and gurus and philosophers and ideologues and life coaches and 12-steppers and their sponsors, he was parroting what he had been told. His functioning was being influenced by his false belief in what he had been told to think, what he had been told to say, and what he had been told to do.
The planet-wide affliction of humanity - the monkey-see, monkey do disorder - was in charge, so it was only after he broke free of the influence of that syndrome that the pure, universal consciousness was able to speak through him and point to reality and truth.
And that is the only (presently-baseless and likely-unattainable) hope for humankind:
To break the belief-bondage chains which control so many and which result in almost all walking about in a sleep state while thinking they are awake.
Last night in a dream, “floyd” was supposedly undergoing a series of experiences involving this and that and this which was all seemingly, truly happening to him. Not for even a second was the consciousness able to intervene and said, “Uhhh, by the way, you’re dreaming. None of that is really happening to you.” At the time, it was all believed to be real though none of it was real.
The same is the case if a non-dual "teacher" were to try to tell one among the sleepwalking masses, “Uhhh, by the way, you’re dreaming. None of this is really happening to you. none of this is 'the real'.” The message would be ignored and dismissed as nonsense or evidence of the teacher’s insanity.
To continue with yesterday’s pointers:
A seeker once asked this question:
"So beyond all that talk of the varied phases of 'the Absolute' or 'Brahman,' the question is, 'Once that 'Cosmic Self' is found, what is one to do with it'?" Again, one should be reminded of the dog chasing a car: once it catches up with the car, what is it to do with it?"
If seekers love their religious or spiritual or philosophical role-playing and believe in a "Cosmic Self" or "Supreme Self" or "Infinite Self," then "early Maharaj" is more likely to appeal to them, but religious or spiritual or philosophical pointers will only trap seekers at a point that is not even halfway to "full realization" (that is, to full freedom from learned ignorance) while deluding them into believing that they have "realized fully."
[To abide at the third step where "good roles" are played and to believe that one has completed an entire journey is like a father that is traveling with his spouse and young children from Paris and headed to Nice, that reaches Geneva, that tells the family members to grab their suitcases and leave the train, and then tells them - erroneously - that they have reached their destination.
That would be totally delusional, but as is the case with all children who listen to the nonsense been taught to them by their delusional parents, the children in that scenario will believe that they are in Nice, France rather than in Geneva, Switzerland and will never have a clue about where they are or what Nice is really like or how very different Nice is from Geneva: "Where are the rock-covered beaches and the topless women out sunbathing and the endless stream of expensive yachts passing by?"]
If seekers would actually realize fully and thus be free of being driven by the body of learned ignorance stored in "the mind part" of their brains, then all religious or spiritual or philosophical concepts and beliefs and ideas and teachings must eventually be abandoned, and the sooner the better for those who would be totally free of delusions and distortions and ignorance and who would abide in the freedom and peace and ease and simplicity and relaxation of Nisarga, natural living.
Therefore, to review, there are three ways in which the relative existence can happen: unnaturally, supernaturally, or naturally (meaning, in a "Nisarga" fashion).
To fail to seek is to live unnaturally. To seek realization via only the Traditional Method, the Neo-Advaita Method, the Neo-Vedanta Method, the Direct Path Method (or one of the spin-offs of those four) is to be left in a position where one tries to live supernaturally . . . becoming a "Spiritual Giant" or something "Supreme."
Only if the Nisarga Yoga (the "Natural Yoga") is also offered can living naturally and spontaneously happen. When that is the case, all religious and / or spiritual work finally ends, all seeking finally ends, and ordinary, normal, effortless, relaxed living begins.
All “journeys” undertaken by seekers have goals—save one. For some, the goal is “salvation” or “eternal bliss” in some version of heaven or the completion of one level of development on what is believed to be one “journey” of many parts which must all be completed to receive a reward at the end.
All—save one—involve the assumption of new personas, being better, gaining power, enjoying rewards now and forevermore, finding a way to live a religious life or a spiritual life, or living in some similar supernatural fashion.
And while all such “journeys” can at certain junctures involve the above, here, seekers are invited to move beyond personality and the assumption of all roles, including religious roles and spiritual roles. Here, persons are invited to consider: is it possible that no matter how certain you are that you have reached the end of the “path,” is it possible that you have not even reached the midway point?
Is it possible that Maharaj’s pointer may have been accurate when he said,
“There are so many who take the dawn for the noon, a momentary experience for full realisation, and destroy even the little they gain by excess of pride”?
Are you proud of how spiritual you are? If it is understood that the assumption of any ego-state triggers the use of egotism and other ego-defense mechanisms, then can it not also be understood that the assumption of a spiritual ego-state will always result in spiritual arrogance?
Yes, the “path” from "identification with the false 'I' to the Absolute" has steps involving religion or spirituality or the supernatural; however, those all inspire the assumption of roles; they all require doingness; and they all have goals which fixate persons in the goal-seeker stage and in a seeker mode that will prevent the reaching of full realization and understanding the Noneness as well as the Oneness.
The questions offered for consideration, therefore, are these:
WHO—what persona, what personality type—thinks that he / she is now "better" for having become religious or spiritual?
WHO believes that she / he is "made better"—or even made "better than"—because living is happening in a supernatural fashion?
WHO is being led—often subconsciously—to believe that life is made better when one knells, rises, and knells some more? Rings a bell? Puts a bowl on a pillow and strikes it with a special stick? Wears a special robe or cross? Commits suicide while killing members of other religions? Hums and chants or shouts and screams? Asks favors of some external power? Arbitrarily follows holy diets rather than the food plan indicated for one's metabolic body type?
WHO during worship waves arms about in the air? WHO rolls around on the floor? WHO handles poisonous snakes to show their faith? WHO in order to show their faith and their belief in the absolute power of prayer withholds antibiotics from their children that are suffering from an infection?
And WHO . . .
Speaks in unknown tongues? Cries as a result of being emotionally intoxicated? Sings praises? Faints? Gives away possessions or money to a supposedly-holy institution? Continues to give money to an institution even though they know their money is being used as hush money to cover up the sexual abuse and raping of children by people in charge of that institution, thus enabling the molestation to continue?
WHO allows himself of herself to be struck on the forehead and then swoons? Fights with others who have different beliefs? Allows religious or spiritual leaders to dictate what should or should not be eaten? Allows "religious men" to determine how many children they have? Questions nothing and believes all they hear with unwavering "faith"? And works, works, works at living—especially at living in the “right” way or in a “better way”?
Of all the “paths” that have been dreamed up by persons over the ages, it is the Direct Path Method - presented in conjunction with the Nisarga, Natural Yoga - which has clear-cut steps to be completed in a specific order but has no goals in the end;
that eliminates the assumption of personas; that makes no promises about being “better than” someday; that offers no superpower or super beings to be at your disposal; that does not promise that you will become a Supreme Being;
that does not claim you are superior now; and that invites persons to take religious or spiritual or supernatural steps not as an end but as a means to move beyond that and then realize fully and thereafter to abide naturally rather than unnaturally or supernaturally.
Of all of the types of yoga available for study or guidance, the least popular is likely the Nisarga Yoga. Of all the types of yoga, this is the one which invites seekers to engage in whatever exercises they deem necessary but to eventually move beyond all of the effort and work and toil involved in assuming and maintaining their spiritual roles and to abide in a totally natural fashion.
Consider all the work that goes into blocking the consciousness enough for it to believe that such identities as these are real: “The Religious One”; “The Spiritual One” or “The Spiritual Giant”; “The Good Catholic”;
“The Good Baptist”; “The Good Presbyterian”; “The Good Anglican”; The Good Pentecostal”; “The Good Episcopalian”; “The Good Cultist”; “The Good Evangelical”; “The Good Muslim”;
“The Good Shiite”; “The Good Sunni”; “The Good Jew”; “The Good Hindu”; “The Good Taoist”; “The Good Advaitin”; “The Good Vedantin”; “The Native American Spiritualist,” ad infinitum.
Consider all of the work and sacrifice and energy and effort that goes into maintaining those images, and consider the levels of nonsense which persons must believe in order to play all of those roles and engage in all of the phoniness that accompanies role-playing.
You are invited to consider this as well:
"Is it possible that the remainder of the manifestation could unfold with considerably more freedom if it were to happen spontaneously and naturally rather than in a planned, prescribed, and artificially-supernatural or totally unnatural manner?"
To be continued.
THE NEWEST OFFER:
Watch
an updated seven-hour streaming video of a retreat with Floyd Henderson
which can be viewed by anyone with internet access. (In this video, all
seven of the steps on "the path" as taught by Maharaj are explained and
discussed.)
If
interested, click the button below to pay the fee via PayPal. You will
then receive an email which includes the link for you to view the
private, unlisted video via an arrangement we have made with YouTube,
Inc. You do not have to have a YouTube account to watch this privately
streamed video.
(If
you do not receive the link promptly, your computer or email provider
may have high filter settings. Check your spam and trash folders because
some providers automatically transfer emails containing links to those
folders.)
To access the seven-hour streaming video of a retreat and begin watching right away, click this "Buy Now" button:
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts
in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other
posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and
Archives" section.]
In
addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by
Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,300
posts for any topics of interest to you.
PAPERBACK COPIES OF SOME OF THE BOOKS OFFERED HERE
If you prefer PAPERBACK copies
of some of Henderson’s non-duality books,
10 of his books in PRINT FORM are available through AMAZON.
(That is, ten books are collected in two anthologies
for sale on AMAZON.)
For NON-DUALITY AUDIENCES
The Advanced Seekers' Series
(344 pages) is an anthology of four books that share Advaita-based,
non-duality pointers that can guide seekers to abide as their original
nature. Included in the anthology are
"From the I to the Absolute (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality");
"Consciousness / Awareness: The Nature of Reality Beyond SELF-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding As the Absolute)";
"From the Absolute to the Nothingness";
and
"The Final Understanding."
Order a PAPERBACK copy of The Advanced Seekers' Series from AMAZON by clicking here
Also for NON-DUALITY AUDIENCES
This anthology (438 pages) contains the six books that make up what has been called The Blissful Abidance Series for those seeking to live blissfully and happily for the remainder of the manifestation, including,
“What BLISS is and what BLISS is not”;
“There’s No Such Thing As Peace of Mind (There’s Only Peace If You’re ‘Out of Your Mind’)”;
“Liberation (Attaining Freedom from Personality via Realization)”;
“Freedom from Shifting Between States of Happiness and Unhappiness”;
“Why You Must Be Empty If You Would Be Full”;
and
“When REALITY Is Overlaid on the RELATIVE.”
Order a PAPERBACK copy of The Blissful Abidance Series from Amazon by clicking here
SEND A GIFT BOOK TO SOMEONE
To make an arrangement for us to send in your name as a gift from you any of our books to someone you choose:
(a) Visit www.floydhenderson.com.
(b) Purchase the ebook you’d like to send.
(c)
Contact us using the email below, tell us which ebook you just
purchased, and provide the name and email address of the person you want
to send the ebook to. (They will never be contacted again or solicited
for any reason.)
Send your information to:
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 their god / their 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
or
You can click on the picture link which has now been added for video "Number Ten" in the upper right-hand column on this page.
If preferred, here's
the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION
of that session.
