TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
6. Or, you may purchase a Floyd Henderson Shopify Gift Card here for someone and offer recommendations for the books in Floyd's store which might be of assistance to them.
The quotations and pointers are being arranged by category and subject matter.
To continue with the sharing of certain quotes which point toward the non-dual understanding:
excerpted from the book
QUOTATIONS AND POINTERS dealing with NON-DUALITY, ADVAITA, NISARGA YOGA and more
OTHER NON-DUAL POINTERS FROM MORE MODERN SOURCES
Russell Brand
"It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe."
G.I. Gurdjieff
"Without self knowledge . . . man cannot be free and . . . he will always remain a slave."
"A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror."
"A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows."
" . . . Man will renounce any pleasures you like but will not give up suffering."
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life.”
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
“The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.”
“I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God. I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t.”
“After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?”
“I know that the molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos. That makes me want to grab people on the street and say: ‘Have you HEARD THIS'?”
“People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers."
“While the Copernican principle comes with no guarantees that it will forever guide us to cosmic truths, it's worked quite well so far: not only is Earth not in the center of the solar system, but the solar system is not in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy is not in the center of the universe, and it may come to pass that our universe is just one of many that comprise a multiverse. And in case you're one of those people who thinks that the edge may be a special place, we are not at the edge of anything either.”
“Again and again across the centuries, cosmic discoveries have demoted our self-image. Earth was once assumed to be astronomically unique, until astronomers learned that Earth is just another planet orbiting the Sun. Then we presumed the Sun was unique, until we learned that the countless stars of the night sky are suns themselves. Then we presumed our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the entire known universe, until we established that the countless fuzzy things in the sky are other galaxies, dotting the landscape of our known universe. Today, how easy it is to presume that one universe is all there is. Yet emerging theories of modern cosmology, as well as the continually reaffirmed improbability that anything is unique, require that we remain open to the latest assault on our plea for distinctiveness: multiple universes, otherwise known as the 'multiverse,' in which ours is just one of countless bubbles bursting forth from the fabric of the cosmos.”
Next:
A series of articles combined and published as Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind (1901) influenced a fellow named William ("Bill") Griffiths Wilson considerably. He became interested in Eastern teachings, so when he wrote a book which has become "The Bible of Alcoholics," he included much material which he "co-opted," some of which was from articles and books which he read about Eastern Teachings.
Many of the pointers he repeated, of course, deal with pointers that "non-dualists" can relate to:
From "ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS" (a.k.a., "the A.A. Big Book")
References are made to “The Great Reality” and use of “the sixth sense” and “the intuition” and it is advised to “cast aside ideas and emotions and attitudes.”
In later writings, the author of that book spoke of "physical intoxication, mental intoxication, spiritual intoxication and emotional intoxication" as well as "physical sobriety, mental sobriety, spiritual sobriety and the final level of sobriety, emotional sobriety."
[To no longer be "physically intoxicated" while remaining "mentally intoxicated," "spiritually intoxicated" and "emotionally intoxicated" can - in many ways, relatively speaking - be even worse than just being physically drunk.]
Wilson explained that his audience did not have a drinking problem but had a "thinking problem."
In his writings, the author of that book also spoke of "a total psychic change" that restores one to sanity; of a movement beyond the Realm of the Material and the Realm of the Spirit, reaching a state of awareness that is the essence, and connecting with what he called in the A.A. Big Book one’s "inner resource" (a.k.a., "the inner guru");
and he spoke of a movement beyond the limited physical 5-sense existence into a constant use of the vital sixth sense;
and of a movement beyond the three-dimensional (height, width, depth) limitations of this (phenomenal) world and into the fourth dimension (or, in non-dual terms, "the Noumenal).
He wrote about the fallacy of mistaking appearance for the real, writing . . .
"The prosaic steel girder" is not actually what it appears to be but is instead "a mass of electrons."
He wrote, "With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves." [Those see "their resource" as within, not without.]
Also from the A.A. Big Book, a quotation from Dr. Silkworth regarding those with addictions: " . . . They cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false.”
Wilson also wrote, “The main problem . . . centers in his mind . . . .”
and
“The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong.” [Note: That means, there is not just something "wrong" with alcoholics but there is something "quite wrong" with all people instead. In other words, all persons are just not quite "right."]
He wrote: "It is constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material world, that outward appearances are not inward reality at all."
The solution is to be “catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence. I was to know happiness, peace . . . .”
He wrote: "The terms 'spiritual experience' and 'spiritual awakening' are used many times in this book which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms."
[So, yes, he understood that mental and personality disorders were at the root of the illness and originally wrote that the illness is a "two-part sickness of body and mind."
He had arranged for certain men in Ohio to write their "stories," sharing how they were recovering from alcoholism via the A.A. program (which he had "co-opted" from the Oxford Group). When those men read the rough draft of his book and saw that Bill was speaking of "a two-fold illness" - of body and mind - they explained that if he did not make clear that the sickness is, above all else, a "spiritual malady," then he would not get their stories which he needed to add to his 164 pages in order to make a "big book."
He succumbed to the blackmail and talk would thereafter be about "a three-part illness involving body, mind, and - above all else - one's 'spiritual condition," abandoning his original plan to show that the main root of the problem with the Addictive Personality Disorder centers in the mind and in personality disorders."]
For the second and subsequent edition, he had the final word when he wrote, "Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it 'God-consciousness'.”
[So he made clear that, in the beginning, "the God part" was a part which only their "religious members" spoke of, those members originally being a group of Catholics from Cleveland whose priest made them split from the original Akron Oxford Group - with threat of excommunication otherwise - and who were the men who made the original "no-spirituality, no stories" demand.]
While he was able to insert many pointers in the book based in Eastern teachings, the original intention was to offer a far-greater emphasis on the non-dual understanding than was included in the end. As for the explanation that only the original "religious members" talked about "God," that point was relegated to an appendix at the end of the book which is printed in a small font, so it is seldom given much - or any - attention nowadays.
At any rate, non-dual pointers have long been shared, even by those who never heard the term "non-dual." That has long been the case among those who have, to use the words Bill "co-opted" from someone else, "tapped into the inner resource."
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
To be continued.
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:
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.
If you prefer PAPERBACK copies
(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."
from BARNES AND NOBLE by clicking here
or (sometimes less efficiently nowadays in terms of paperback delivery)
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
(1) You may purchase
a Floyd Henderson Shopify Gift Card here
for someone and offer recommendations for the books in Floyd's store which might be of assistance to them.
Or,
(2) 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:
THE EXPLANATION
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"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places
"There is no hell."
