OBSTACLES WHICH BLOCK A SCIENCE-BASED UNDERSTANDING of both REALITY AND reality and thus GENERATE A LOVE OF IGNORANCE

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 available in two anthologies through Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and over 40,000+ booksellers around the globe including in the Americas, Germany, India, Italy, Poland, Russia, China, Spain, Brazil and South Korea. 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. 

OBSTACLES WHICH BLOCK A SCIENCE-BASED
UNDERSTANDING
of both
REALITY AND reality
and thus
GENERATE A LOVE OF IGNORANCE

Again, of the non-dual understanding which Maharaj offered, what might explain why he initially estimated that "only 1 out of 100,000 will ever get this" but later said that "only 1 out of 1,000,000 will ever get this" and eventually - after decades of working with seekers - modified that guesstimate to "1 out of 10,000,000"?

The masses have long been seen to have not only a preference for ignorance but also an actual love of ignorance. They have long been willing to fight to devalue education and educators and have long been willing to "go to the mat" - to fight against - education and educational institutions in general.

Consider the enormity of the obstacles which one who works for 20 or 40 or 80 years with seekers of the non-dual understanding will witness: 

Obstacle #5: "AN AFFINITY AMONG THE MASSES FOR AN ATTACHMENT TO THE SYMPTOMS OF THE ULTIMATE SICKNESS," ESPECIALLY IGNORANCE.

Education in the U.S. and in other nations as well has often been a low priority. Governmental support for education on the local and state and federal levels have always been minimal.

In the first schools opened in the U.S., the curriculum first and foremost served to adumbrate the belief systems being taught in the puritanical churches. In parts of the U.S. nowadays, the same is happening as lessons in the science of evolution are being replaced in textbooks with lessons touting religious beliefs regarding creationism.

Likewise in the U.S. and around the globe, teacher pay has been, and is, minimal. In many parts of the country, an actual anti-education, anti-intellectual sentiment has been firmly held - typically among the uneducated, of course. 

Universities have long been held in disdain by the most conservative members of U.S. society, the belief being that "those liberals working in their lofty ivory towers don't have a clue about what is really happening and what really should be taught, and all they do is put liberal, anti-God thoughts in the minds of our children. All they want to do is reprogram our kids to give up all the values we taught them." 

As for those who do go to college, John Wilson's research and investigation into the political divide in the U.S. - and in other nations as well - revealed that "the most disturbing examples of 'thought policing' on college campuses have come from the right." 

He said: "The image of the college campus as a gulag of left-wing totalitarianism is false, created largely through the exaggeration of deceptive stories by conservatives who hypocritically seek to silence their political opponents." 

Jason Blakely found evidence in the Republican Party's 2017 tax bill that "marks the culmination of a decades-long renouncement of higher education by portions of the American conservative movement." 

He cites a number of college presidents and leaders who studied the Republicans' 2017 bill and concluded that "the tax bill appears to be symptomatic of the GOP’s growing disillusionment with higher education" and concluded that "a commonplace of the culture war is that the Republican Party and the American right consistently position themselves against the universities." 

In multiple instances, the bill reduced the funding that universities received beginning in 2018, and students since have been deprived of much of the funding assistance which they had qualified for in the past. 

Last year, the collective student loan burden in the United States passed the one trillion dollar mark, and students are being charged an interest rate on their debt which far exceeds the interest rate of other consumer debt. 

From 2006 to 2013, Direct Unsubsidized Student Loans carried a rate of up to 7% for both graduate and undergraduate students. By contrast, in 2013, a student with a good credit score could receive a loan for a new car with a rate of 3.2%. In other words, the government was charging students more than twice as much for loans for an education as financial institutions were charging for loans for a new car. 

Also, President Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revoked Obama administration guidelines which increased consumer protections in student loan servicing. Two dozen state attorneys general complained - to no avail - that “rolling back essential protections imperils millions of student loan borrowers and families" and urged her to reconsider immediately. They were ignored. 

THE SCORE CURRENTLY: 

Money lenders and government: 1 

Students:                                      0 

or, truth be told, 

Money lenders and government: $Trillions 

Students:                                      $0 

So students attending college are screwed going in by being charged unjustifiably-high loan rates and by having less government loan and grant accessibility and are then screwed afterwards as money lenders defraud them by increasing their loan amount by adding non-contractual hidden charges and arbitrary fees to their loan totals. And now the students be gouged financially have little or no right to challenge the practice. 

By word and deed, it is obvious that along the line of the 50-50 political divide in the U.S., nearly one-half of the population and more than one-half of the local and state and federal political leaders are continuing the anti-education, anti-intellectual crusade which has long been led by the Right. 

In survey results released on 11 July 2017, more than half of Republicans said that colleges have a negative impact on the U.S. 

In 2008 Obama said of the persons in that segment of the population, "It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." Indeed. 

Maharaj noted that three of the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness are "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity." It is obvious to any impartial observer that in the U.S. and many other nations, there does exist a deeply-embedded and strong-held affinity among 50% or more of the masses to cling to the attachment which many have to the Ultimate Sickness and to the ignorance and stupidity and insanity which continues to drive those persons and their agendas.

The key non-dual point in all of the above: Ignorance is most typically preferred. Ignorance is pervasive and is being reinforced and spread. Ignorance rules.

Obstacle #6: "THE IGNORANCE / MAGICAL THINKING / ANTI-SCIENCE PARADIGM" 

"Science will someday advance to the point that it will confirm the validity of the non-dual teachings." 

 --Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 

In England and much of Western Europe during the Middle Ages (a.k.a., "The Medieval Period" / "The Dark Ages" lasting for roughly one thousand years from the end of the late 400's through the late 1400's) physicians and surgeons were considered by religious leaders of that day to be pariahs - persons who should be exiled or killed. 

Was that view based in the often barbaric practices of many physicians, including for a long period of time the popular method of treating most illnesses with bleeding? No, not at all. (It was the priests who were conducting barbaric rites of exorcisms, the killing of those healers accused of being witches, etc.)

No, the issue was egotism-based territorialism: the priests thought that healing should be left in the hands of God and in the hands of God's representatives on earth, that is, in the hands of the ignorant clergy. 

So much did those ordained by the Church despise anyone outside of religion who offered healing services that churches not only denied non-church-affiliated healers the right to participate in church activities but also excommunicated them and refused them the right to be buried in the churches' "holy ground."

In many more extreme instances, the church held a "court-like" hearing and found non-religious healers brought before their court to be heretics, apostates, atheists, secularists, and blasphemers. Many of those were sentenced to death. 

An internet source offered the following: 

In the 19th century, the "conflict thesis" emerged to propose an intrinsic conflict or conflicts between the Church and science. The original historical usage of the term asserted that the Church has been in perpetual opposition to science.

Later uses of the term denote the Church's epistemological opposition to science. The thesis interprets the relationship between the Church and science as inevitably leading to public hostility when religion aggressively challenges new scientific ideas as in "the Galileo Affair." 

An alternative criticism is that the Church opposed particular scientific discoveries that it felt challenged its authority and power – particularly through the Reformation and on through the Enlightenment.

This thesis shifts the emphasis away from the perception of the fundamental incompatibility of religion per se and science-in-general to a critique of the structural reasons for the resistance of the Church as a political organization. 

In terms of "the science vs. dogma debate," when persons are programmed to believe that they will be punished for eternity if they accept any scientific fact which challenges the beliefs which they have been taught by their religious leaders, science and facts will usually lose and ignorance and fiction and lies and nonsense will almost always win. 

And with 97%+ being programmed to accept religious and / or spiritual teachings without questioning and with blind faith instead, that is quite a widespread obstacle for anyone seeking the non-dual understanding.

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 VERSIONS OF SOME OF HENDERSON'S NON-DUALITY BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE

If you prefer PAPERBACK copies
of some of Henderson’s non-duality books,

10 of his books are available in PRINT FORM
(collected in two anthologies).

Links for ordering are below with 
BARNES and NOBLE presently providing better service 
than AMAZON
when  it come to fulfilling orders for
paperback and hardcover books
as opposed to delivering digital books. 

[NOTE: Wherever you live, you can search for the books below by title with booksellers in your country. With 40,000+ retailers distributing my paperback books, you may order from U.S. stores or you may find someone nearer to you.] 

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 BARNES AND NOBLE by clicking here
or (sometimes less efficiently nowadays in terms of paperback delivery)

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 BARNES AND NOBLE by clicking here

or (sometimes less efficiently nowadays in terms of paperback delivery)
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