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
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MAHARAJ AND THE RELIGION VS. SCIENCE DEBATE
"Science will someday advance to the point that it will confirm the validity of the non-dual teachings."
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The later teachings of Maharaj, after he transitioned beyond both his religious stage and after he transitioned beyond his spirituality stage and after he then entered his psychological see that the mind is the source of all of humankind's problems stage, then he made clear that:
not only is the magical thinking inspired by religion and spirituality a detriment to abiding in an ignorance-free and an insanity-free manner
but also
all of humanity's nonsense-based thoughts which among the non-realized masses will always arise from a nonsense-filled mind are a detriment to abiding in an ignorance-free and an insanity-free manner.
One of the greatest detriments comes when
(a) the misunderstandings around mahasamadhi and (b) the misunderstandings around the un-manifesting process
intersect with
(c) belief systems which are rooted in ancient, ignorance-based myths and superstitions and which generate magical thinking.
Hence Maharaj's focus in the final phase of his teaching centered on becoming free of the subconscious agendas of the warped mind by reaching a state of zero concepts and abiding under the auspices of the all-natural, elemental brain rather than the subconscious agendas of the human-made mind.
To continue:
HEADLINE:
NEW YORK, N.Y. (WIVB) — RESEARCHERS IN NEW YORK SAY THAT AFTER A PERSON DIES, THE BRAIN IS STILL ACTIVE
The report: This means, according to CBS contributors, is that “in many cases they can be aware that they’ve passed away.”
[Yesterday's consideration]:
Many people claim that they looked down upon their bodies as they were "dying" and saw rescuers working to revive them and then saw themselves returning to their bodies and
"living" and claiming "it was a miracle."
Far from being "a miracle," which some describe is a commonplace event which the wisest among non-dualists have understood for thousands of years. what others describe is a con, dreamed up to further a dogma-based agenda or a financial agenda.
The explanation of what really happens at the moment of mahasamadhi and with the unmanifesting process will continue with tomorrow's post.
[First, not understanding mahasamadhi and the un-manifesting process has led on many occasions to those whose un-manifesting was interrupted and who then erroneously reported that they had seen "an afterlife" or "a beautiful heaven" or maybe "a horrible hell awaiting all or some other totally false sighting. More significantly, such beliefs have trapped millions and trillions in the delusion of "an afterlife" and a preoccupation with earning "an eternal reward."]
Some in the Far East have long spoken of "three bodies" to help students understand the movement.
Consider . . .
1. the gross body to be the space housing manifested consciousness;
2. take the subtle body to represent something shifting beyond the personal, gross body;
3. and take the causal body to correspond to the transpersonal stage that precedes total transcendence to the Unmanifest, to the no-body and no-mind Reality.
The content of "The Vision" (available without charge above) clarified for me what happens with the three bodies and has done the same for many other seekers. Here's what was shown to me in the vision regarding the three bodies and the unmanifesting process:
"So with these three birds representing different 'bodies' / 'stages,' might they also provide some simpler understanding of the very confusing and convoluted discussions about 'the gross, subtle, and causal bodies? Hummm."
"No wait. It's clear that the representation of the physical body or gross - the elemental plant food body - is presented prior to the birds: it's that body that's left outside the arch. That's the body-cum-consciousness which needs gross food, drink and air.
"But what about the subtle body? That's the vehicle of consciousness and the vehicle of desires and the vehicle that also houses the mind and intellect, so in the vision that would be the body walking through trees and across water. I know Maharaj said that body is 'created with the emergence of the ‘I am’ idea' and 'is momentary. Real when present, unreal when over.'
"In the vision, that's also before the birds appear, so the birds aren't representing either of those 'bodies.' That leaves the causal body that many in the East consider to be a higher subtle body, beyond even the mental body that was seen moving through the arch. Seems I read that when belief in personality ends, the 'essence' of You is absorbed into the causal body or shifts to the causal body form?
"In the vision, that happens when the raven - when belief in the religious-spiritual self - comes to an end and is transformed into the gull. So that's where the birds come in. But I also read that there will eventually come an awareness of all 'others' and that there will no longer be anything 'seen' as another - as an 'other' - and that what will then seen is the unicity, Love, wisdom, bliss, everythingness, nothingness.
Then, it was recalled that Maharaj taught: "There is something that may be called the memory body, or causal body, a record of all that was thought, wanted and done. It is like a cloud of images held together."
[Years of magical-thinking-based programming, conditioning, etc. set the stage for the mind to be filled with the nonsense which will - guaranteed - generate magical, nonsensical thoughts which then generate the use of magical, nonsensical words which, in turn, lead to totally nonsensical, insanity-driven actions.]
[Years of magical-thinking-based programming, conditioning, etc. set the stage for the mind to be filled with the nonsense which will - guaranteed - generate magical, nonsensical thoughts which then generate the use of magical, nonsensical words which, in turn, lead to totally nonsensical, insanity-driven actions.]
At that point, what flashed into consciousness was "Jung" and "archetypes" and the genetic codes serving as a storehouse of images of the entire human experience." Then I went back to the readings and found this:
Maharaj: "What prevents the insight into one’s 'True Nature' is the weakness and obtuseness of the mind and its tendency to skip the subtle and focus on the gross only."
It became clear that the gross body is required for the manifestation of consciousness but that there's so much more to grasp beyond that. It also became clear that the focus and preoccupation with the gross body had to be transcended in order for any understanding of that which is beyond the physical only to manifest.
Yet it was also clear that it was not the Am-ness that had to be forsaken but merely the tendency to focus on the gross alone. I searched for another passage that flashed into consciousness at that moment and found this:
Maharaj: "Abandon all self-concern; worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual; abandon every desire, gross or subtle; stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing."
"Yes! There it is. Confirmation of what I was concluding about the raven coming to end - bringing to an end the playing of the false religious and false spiritual roles. 'Worry not about [the] material or [the] spiritual. Abandon it all!' Yes!"
Then another passage flashed into consciousness and the readings were searched through again until this was found:
Maharaj: "Your true being is entirely unself-conscious, completely free from all self-identification with whatever it may be gross, subtle or transcendental"
as well as this exchange:
M: "Again, you take yourself to be the body."
Questioner: "Even if I dismiss this body of bones, flesh and blood as not-me; still I remain with the subtle body made up of thoughts and feelings, memories and imaginations. If I dismiss these also as not-me, I still remain with consciousness, which also is a kind of body."
M: "You are quite right, but you need not stop there. Go beyond."
"Beyond the three bodies? Is that an invitation to go to the borderline, and then move even beyond that to the void? To the nothingness?" Wow. This vision is packed chock full! So many of the final pieces of the puzzle which had been missing are now falling into place! Now to find where the borderline is and what the borderline is."
From a site visitor:
V.: “My wife has been visited at night by her deceased father who brings positive messages to her. It seems to me that those sighting dismiss your notion that there is no body or any form in an afterlife.”
F.: Your comments, along with your wife’s “sightings,” show that you have both missed the natural understanding and have been programmed to think supernaturally. There are actually two possible explanations for her “experiences”:
(1) the sightings were “real” and involved a subtle or causal body state of consciousness or
(2) the sightings were actually just mere imaginings of the types that happen in the Theta state of consciousness.
In “The Glossary of Terms Used on this Site,” one entry in December 2005 offered this, in part:
Unmanifesting: The movement of consciousness (which was temporarily manifested into a space) back into that "field of conscious-energy" from which it came.
(The erroneous beliefs in ghosts, angels, spirits, and an eternal life with a body were first given credence when the consciousness that was still manifested in some gross body became aware of subtle or causal stage manifestations of consciousness in the transition stage of unmanifesting.
A woman who looked as if she'd seen a ghost approached me and told me her grandmother had just appeared to her and told her "everything is going to be OK." Fifteen minutes later, a call came that her grandmother had died fifteen minutes earlier.
A woman who looked as if she'd seen a ghost approached me and told me her grandmother had just appeared to her and told her "everything is going to be OK." Fifteen minutes later, a call came that her grandmother had died fifteen minutes earlier.
That event was nothing more than manifested consciousness being aware of unmanifesting consciousness. Rather than suggesting that some "magical world" exists out there or that "bodies last forever," that event merely illustrated that consciousness can know consciousness NOW and that the unicity, the oneness, the unbroken connection can account for some events which only seem to be miraculous or inexplicable.)
Next, the advice is to only use the "three body stages" to help you picture consciousness not unmanifesting in a micro-second but fading out of the manifestation and into the unmanifest.
Many persons claim that consciousness is "the soul" and that the soul will go to another world and remanifest there into the same body it was in on earth—along with the same "mind" it had at the "time" of "death."
Of course that is impossible since dust does not regroup and since "the mind" was a complete illusion . . . the storehouse of all illusions.
While the scientists have not yet understood the explanation available fro the sages of the East, they are certain dancing around the understanding, moving closer and closer.
As for the masses ever understanding the truth about mahasamadhi and the unmanifesting process, that is not likely because the understanding will contradict the mythical and mystical and superstition-based teachings of one organized religion or another which 97% of the humans on the planet report that they are affiliated with.
There are too many supposedly "holy" and "precious" and "sacred" and "really popular" concepts based in duality - such as "a life in this world and an eternal life in the next world" and "heaven and hell" and "good and bad" and "reward and punishment" or "going through multiple cycles of birth-death-rebirth," etc. - for the masses to give up their totally erroneous beliefs about this subject.
There are too many supposedly "holy" and "precious" and "sacred" and "really popular" concepts based in duality - such as "a life in this world and an eternal life in the next world" and "heaven and hell" and "good and bad" and "reward and punishment" or "going through multiple cycles of birth-death-rebirth," etc. - for the masses to give up their totally erroneous beliefs about this subject.
Add in
(a) the fear
and
and
(b) the disappointment regarding unmet desires which are generated by understanding that "this is all there is for you"
and
and
(c) add in the angst around realizing that there is "no eternal life," "no Eternal Brothel in the Sky," "no thousands of virgins, wives and whores to be at males' beck and call," etc.
and
and
then it is clear why the actual understanding of mahasamadhi and the unmanifesting process would be anathema among the masses.
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 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.