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
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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
[Continued from yesterday]
To clarify the terms used when discussing
(A) the "three bodies" and
(B) the process of taking mahasamadhi and
(C) the process of the conscious-energy manifesting,
the following is offered from the "Glossary of Terms" in the back of the eBook FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven Step Journey to Reality) as well as from this site during a post nearly thirteen years ago in 2005:
Manifesting:
The act of conscious-energy / consciousness entering into (manifesting within) a particular elemental space.
As for human forms on earth, the conscious-energy “moves” from plants to humans or from plants to animals to humans. While the consciousness is eternal, the manifestation of consciousness is always temporary and will eventually unmanifest from the space (the plant or the plant-food body of insects, animals, humans, whatever) in which it is manifested.
Unmanifesting:
The movement of consciousness (which was temporarily-manifested into a space) back into that "universal field or pool of conscious-energy" from which it came.
Once more, some speak of three bodies to help students picture the movement. Consider the gross body to be the space housing manifested consciousness; take the subtle body to represent something shifting beyond the personal, gross body; and take the causal body to correspond to the transpersonal stage which precedes total transcendence to the Unmanifest, to the no-body and no-mind Reality.
(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.
Again, 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.
Again, 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" or that myths and superstitions about "ghosts and the afterlife are real," that event merely illustrated that consciousness can know consciousness NOW.
In fact, it is only NOW that consciousness can know consciousness. Unmanifested from a space with a nervous system, consciousness is at rest in the "field of consciousness," and no exact same "cluster" of consciousness will ever remanifest in the same "clustering" again.)
In an effort to understand human behavior, one of my psychology professors advised many times during the semester I spent in his class that if one would understand the influences behind any particular action taken by a human, turn to one of the following to begin your search:
First, look for motive.
Second, look for the drivers rooted in body and mind and personality identifications.
Finding the actual motive can be a challenge because most persons' motives are not obvious, either to them or to the observer of their behavior, but it will often involve a "perceived payoff."
In the case of drivers, which are also functioning at a subconscious or unconscious level, understand that every personality type, persona, false identity, role, etc. has two basic drives:
1.desires
and
2. fears.
If it were not for those two factors, both of which are rooted in selfishness, then there would be no religion at all. Why?
Because religions are all about wanting, about getting, about ulterior motives, about fearing, or about being driven by delusional influences which the masses are blind to.
Some speak of the three basic instincts or drives as the drive for food, the drive for water, and the drive for sex. Any other drives come after those, yet ahead of those is the primary drive which exists among all living things: a drive to survive based in the belief in - and desire for - body continuity.
During my walks through the woods, any bird that sees me headed its way will fly off in the opposite direction. Why? Because it instinctively desires body continuity. Similarly, during the years when religion was being involuntarily forced upon me, I saw that I was surrounded by people who all had self-centered and self-serving agendas associated with their delusional belief in the concept of body continuity:
"I want eternal rewards" (desire); "I want to eternally avoid punishment" (fear); "I want blessings for me now" (desire); "I want blessings for my children, my business, my country," ad infinitum (desire).
If one understands the reality behind manifesting and unmanifesting, then none of those thoughts could ever arise. But they do among the masses, and the sources of human behavior are thoughts which generate words which lead to actions / behaviors.
Religion, therefore, is about learned ignorance and being fooled.
Voltaire said, "Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool."
One such scoundrel was the self-appointed priest who told his followers that the reason that the crops were dying was a lack of rain and that the lack of rain was the result of their having displeased "The Rain God."
And what did he report can appease an angry male god? Sex. With what type of women? According to the priest, a "virgin." And how to arrange that? Well, since the priest presented himself as "god's representative on earth," he was the one to facilitate the process by having sex with a virgin.
What else can appease the rain god? That which appeases all gods, namely, giving them sacrifices. The sacrifice in that case would be the virgin because, once killed, she would go to wherever the gods were and then the rain god could have sex with her in person.
Meanwhile, the priest would cut out her beating heart and drink her blood and eat her flesh and then pass her heart through the crowd so that all could do the same and thereby "commune" with the rain god. Nowadays, that "First Communion" is still being reenacted on a regular basis to this very day.
Those people were fooled by a scoundrel who inspired the people in his community to provide him with food and shelter and clothing and who inspired them to adopt his beliefs as their own which led them to allow him to have sex with their virgins unquestioningly and then act out the origin of what is now known as "a snuff film" today.
How to break free of being driven by the beliefs of false prophets / scoundrels? Stop being fooled. How? By understanding the truth:
There is no birth. There is no death. There is no "afterlife" for any "one." There is no rebirth. There will be no body continuity, so there will be no rewards and there will be no punishment. And there are no gods or goddesses or the "one true (very narcissistic) God" whom you supposedly need to appease and worship and glorify both now and forevermore.
In an effort to understand human behavior, one of my psychology professors advised many times during the semester I spent in his class that if one would understand the influences behind any particular action taken by a human, turn to one of the following to begin your search:
First, look for motive.
Second, look for the drivers rooted in body and mind and personality identifications.
Finding the actual motive can be a challenge because most persons' motives are not obvious, either to them or to the observer of their behavior, but it will often involve a "perceived payoff."
In the case of drivers, which are also functioning at a subconscious or unconscious level, understand that every personality type, persona, false identity, role, etc. has two basic drives:
1.desires
and
2. fears.
If it were not for those two factors, both of which are rooted in selfishness, then there would be no religion at all. Why?
Because religions are all about wanting, about getting, about ulterior motives, about fearing, or about being driven by delusional influences which the masses are blind to.
Some speak of the three basic instincts or drives as the drive for food, the drive for water, and the drive for sex. Any other drives come after those, yet ahead of those is the primary drive which exists among all living things: a drive to survive based in the belief in - and desire for - body continuity.
During my walks through the woods, any bird that sees me headed its way will fly off in the opposite direction. Why? Because it instinctively desires body continuity. Similarly, during the years when religion was being involuntarily forced upon me, I saw that I was surrounded by people who all had self-centered and self-serving agendas associated with their delusional belief in the concept of body continuity:
"I want eternal rewards" (desire); "I want to eternally avoid punishment" (fear); "I want blessings for me now" (desire); "I want blessings for my children, my business, my country," ad infinitum (desire).
If one understands the reality behind manifesting and unmanifesting, then none of those thoughts could ever arise. But they do among the masses, and the sources of human behavior are thoughts which generate words which lead to actions / behaviors.
Religion, therefore, is about learned ignorance and being fooled.
Voltaire said, "Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool."
One such scoundrel was the self-appointed priest who told his followers that the reason that the crops were dying was a lack of rain and that the lack of rain was the result of their having displeased "The Rain God."
And what did he report can appease an angry male god? Sex. With what type of women? According to the priest, a "virgin." And how to arrange that? Well, since the priest presented himself as "god's representative on earth," he was the one to facilitate the process by having sex with a virgin.
What else can appease the rain god? That which appeases all gods, namely, giving them sacrifices. The sacrifice in that case would be the virgin because, once killed, she would go to wherever the gods were and then the rain god could have sex with her in person.
Meanwhile, the priest would cut out her beating heart and drink her blood and eat her flesh and then pass her heart through the crowd so that all could do the same and thereby "commune" with the rain god. Nowadays, that "First Communion" is still being reenacted on a regular basis to this very day.
Those people were fooled by a scoundrel who inspired the people in his community to provide him with food and shelter and clothing and who inspired them to adopt his beliefs as their own which led them to allow him to have sex with their virgins unquestioningly and then act out the origin of what is now known as "a snuff film" today.
How to break free of being driven by the beliefs of false prophets / scoundrels? Stop being fooled. How? By understanding the truth:
There is no birth. There is no death. There is no "afterlife" for any "one." There is no rebirth. There will be no body continuity, so there will be no rewards and there will be no punishment. And there are no gods or goddesses or the "one true (very narcissistic) God" whom you supposedly need to appease and worship and glorify both now and forevermore.
Thus, the invitation:
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. Then, see beingness not ending in the flash of a micro-second but fading from a state of beingness, shifting beyond beingness, and striking a non-being state for a brief period until even non-beingness is transcended into the Unmanifest.
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. Then, see beingness not ending in the flash of a micro-second but fading from a state of beingness, shifting beyond beingness, and striking a non-being state for a brief period until even non-beingness is transcended into the Unmanifest.
[Some scientists report that weight of the conscious-energy to be twenty-one grams, released at the time that consciousness unmanifests. That is probably more detail than is needed. 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.]
To understand how the manifesting and the unmanifesting “fits into” the Functioning of the Totality, consider the following regarding the consciousness that has been manifesting and unmanifesting in the space called “humans” for millions of years: the formation of this universe happened just under 14 billion years ago.
On this planet in this universe, “human-like beings”—capable of making tools—roamed about at least 700,000 years ago. In fact, "human-like beings" have moved across the surface of the earth for millions of years (not the 6,021 years that many Christians claim to be "the age of the world"),
[Note: Homo sapiens likely split off from those ancestors more "recently" - about 350,000 years ago.]
The manifestation of consciousness in what persons call “life-forms” began at the depths of the oceans where certain organisms thrive by obtaining their energy from thermal vents rather than sunlight. Over millions of years, the surface environment of the planet evolved in a manner that allowed for the formation of plants. The sunlight’s interaction with plants led to the process of photosynthesis which results in the separation of water molecules, the production of oxygen and glucose, and a means by which energy can manifest in organisms that obtain their energy indirectly rather than directly.
Plant-eaters acquire their energy by consuming plants. Carnivores receive their energy by consuming animals that ate plants. But since the earliest forms evolved at the ocean’s depths, energy-consciousness first manifested there as far as earth's life-forms are concerned. Eight-legged forms--still the most common on the planet--left the water for brief periods until they were able to live above the surface as easily as below. On the surface, they thrived on the oxygen produced by plants and photosynthesis.
Eventually, following one mutation after another, one especially-mutated branch of those eight-legged forms with outer shells evolved into four-appendage forms with inner shells (skeletal structures) and eventually came to be called "humans." Those who decry the suggestion that humans evolved from apes have not gone back nearly far enough to know that the earliest ancestors of “humans” were crustaceans. Humans are, in fact, the epitome of mutation, far from being the “glorious creation” that the ego and modern cultures would have persons believe.
Rather than "O what a glorious piece of work is man," the fact is that "man" is the epitome of mutation and distortion . . . one of the most mutated and distorted of all forms in the history of the planet. No "creature" is farther removed from its original, natural form. Human beliefs now render them not only the most physically-distorted "creature" walking the planet but also the most mentally-distorted. "The most glorious of all living things?" BS. "Given dominion over all other living things?" BS.
Thus, no creature is farther removed from living a natural existence with pure consciousness manifested than "the human," and "humankind" today is living with a level of consciousness more blocked or corrupted than ever before. Persons now live unnaturally and / or try to live supernaturally as a result of the extent of all the distorting or blocking of consciousness. It is that corruption which drives persons to accept the ideas and beliefs of others which, in turn, always generate emotional intoxication and misery. Why understand this?
Only the re-purification of consciousness - via taking all seven steps of the "journey" from a belief in the false "I" as a real identity to knowing what you are (presently, just a composite unity) and what you are not (namely, all of the false identities assigned or assumed) - can eliminate the misery. Awareness of humankind's actual status as the most distorted and corrupted form on the planet might facilitate the elimination of ego and ego-states which lead to all the misery on the planet.
The main pointer here is, energy-consciousness has been manifesting and unmanifesting in life-forms in general for billions of years but in human-like forms for at least one million years and possibly up to fourteen million years. The manifesting and unmanifesting of conscious-energy has been happening on this planet for millions of years, and the cyclings will happen until the sun expands to a point whereby it consumes this planet.
Yet even then, the conscious-energy will continue, and it will continue to cycle . . . manifesting and unmanifesting eternally. Such is the Functioning of the Totality.
Most significantly, know that what I am and that which we both truly are is beyond both the beingness and the non-beingness. Anyone believing otherwise has been fooled. If you realize, you'll never be fooled again (by anybody or anything).
So that covers possibility number one, which is rare. Possibility number two—imagining such sightings and then believing that they were real—happens in the Theta state of consciousness. In that state, persons can dream or envision and be totally convinced that the dream or vision was real. You know that dreams can seem so real that people can often awaken from the dream state with screams or with cold sweats.
That’s how real an illusion can seem to be. Which of those two types was the wife experiencing when she "saw" her message-carrying grandmother? What she actually glimpsed was the temporary-manifested but unmanifesting causal body of her grandmother?
However, rather than concern yourself with any of that, why not find if any dreams are being taken as the real? A far more positive impact on your relative existence could then happen. Of course the Theta state can provide visions that can reveal an understanding of the Functioning of the Totality. Regarding any “positive messages,” though, realize that truth does not come from without, whether that which is outside of you is the image of a deceased relative or is an imaginary power or Power.
Truth is found from within after all dreams and lies are seen and discarded and after any revealing vision is understood.
And part of the truth revealed via that speck of universal consciousness called "Maharaj" is that there is manifesting and unmanifesting but that there is no pre-life of a human, no birth of anything, no death of anything, and no afterlife of anything.
[I heard this while inside a grocery store:
Little Girl: "Mommy, do dogs go to heaven?"
Mom: "Of course they do."
Child: "So I'll see Scamper again someday?"
Mom: "Of course you will, as long as you are good so you can to go to heaven, too."
Here's evidence of the peace and restraint which realization can provide:
I did not sneak over to the child after the mother became distracted, hand the little girl my business card, tell her that her head is being turned into one big crock of ca-ca, and that she might want to look me up in twenty or so years and see if we can arrange for a purifying mind-colonic to flush out all of the BS she's being taught."]
I did not sneak over to the child after the mother became distracted, hand the little girl my business card, tell her that her head is being turned into one big crock of ca-ca, and that she might want to look me up in twenty or so years and see if we can arrange for a purifying mind-colonic to flush out all of the BS she's being taught."]
A key point: there is only cycling, and elements which come together will eventually come apart.
Furthermore, the operative law (The Second Law of Thermodynamics) applies as well to everything else which comes together but is guaranteed to come apart, be it bridges or houses or mountains or governments or religions or businesses or relationships or marriages or "floyd" or "you" or heavens or earths.
Thus, there is no body continuity, no mind continuity and no continuity of personal identifications.
Thus, there is no body continuity, no mind continuity and no continuity of personal identifications.
As Yeshu'a (Jesus) said after he was exposed to the non-dual teachings, "Heaven and earth shall fade away." Why? Because those are concepts, stored in the parts of the elemental brain which form the fiction-filled human mind, and as the conscious-energy unmanifests, it fades away as it moves beyond the confines of an elemental plant food body as the elements slowly return to the universal pool of elements and as the consciousness slowly returns to the universal pool of conscious-energy.
Talk about the freedom that can come via the understanding!
Best regards in the search should you happen to be seeking that.
Talk about the freedom that can come via the understanding!
Best regards in the search should you happen to be seeking that.
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.