ANNOUNCEMENTS
[Walter Driscoll asked to interview me in order to preserve on video some of the latest modifications and evolutions in the versions of the message offered here since 1989. He would label the discussion, "Unlearning with Floyd Henderson."
Please note: For those who have a problem hearing what is being shared, the video offers a fairly accurate set of closed captions which some listeners might want to activate.
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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.)
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OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF BEING TOTALLY INDEPENDENT
“...You are afraid of freedom!”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Some might consider
the upcoming pointers to be a deviation from the subject matter of this series,
but by its end, you will see that it is not. It deals as much as any other post with the fear among the masses of being totally independent.
To be addressed are certain “relative
happenings” in order to offer “an Absolute message” including:
the many inquiries that have come in since the body here began experiencing
some abnormal functioning of the heart have been appreciated, but know that the
talk about that happening deals with the plant food body only and has nothing
to do with me.
Just as the conscious-energy which can manifest for a time in a plant can allow
for talk about a plant-cum-consciousness, so too it must be remembered that the
series of heart issue is happening in a body-cum-consciousness but that the
consciousness involved is not attached at all to the body, either literally or
figuratively.
In fact, the conscious-energy is forever coming and going, too. Consider:
Plant food is eaten
throughout the waking hours to ensure that a “fresh supply” of that energy is
cycling as plant food / elements transform into human cells.
Next, understand that the notion that some teacher is “different” and able to “do
this” or “do that” for you must be transcended if one would understand the
functioning of the totality. Maharaj invited seekers to identify everything
that they are really not ready to let go of. The invitation is still valid.
First and foremost, are you willing to let go of any attachment to the body
(knowing that does not require that you become “suicidal”)? Reaching that state
of non-attachment to the body is where the movement along “the path” begins,
specifically, with a transcending of identification with the limited and
personal and individual plant food body and then with any attachment to a clump
of elements at all.
It is that transcendence that makes the realized appear to be “different,” not
reacting years ago when a doctor spoke of “colon cancer” and not reacting when
there was talk of “only 6 to 24 months to live unless immediate action is taken.”
(Some of those predictions / guesstimates have already been disproved.)
[Note: The absence of “reaction” does not eliminate the possibility of action,
but whatever actions that might happen among the realized regarding these body
issues will be based in logic and reason and will not be driven by the desires
of persons with financial and god-complex-based agendas who would trigger a
state of emotional intoxication in order to control people.]
Again, does non-attachment to the body mean that the realized are irrational,
illogical, suicidal? Hardly. Just as the ego-state of “The Spouse” (which
egotism soon upgrades to the status of “The Super Spouse”) can be transcended
without divorce, so too can body identification be abandoned without destroying
the body.
Now, back to that notion of a teacher being “different” and the comment by one
visitor who suggested that he was being offered something from this speck that
is “different” and was bemoaning the fact that he might not get what he wants
to continue to receive it. That is an idea, and all ideas miss the mark.
Consider that speck called “Maharaj”:
Maharaj was not “different.” The only thing that placed that speck of
consciousness among the few thousand on the planet that are fully realized at
any given time (and that therefore made Maharaj “look different”) was not the
fact that “he” was different.
It was not the fact that Maharaj “looked different” that inspired some to
listen when that speck spoke but the fact that the speck of energy called “Maharaj”
looked differently.
Meaning? Meaning that the unblocked, unobstructed speck of consciousness
witnessed in a manner that was different from the way that all of the other
blocked, obscured specks of consciousness witnessed.
That clear seeing allowed total freedom to manifest, and it was that total
freedom - including being totally free of any attachment to the body - which
allowed the speck called “Maharaj” to take mahasamadhi with no moaning or whining
or whimpering at all. Yet that does not imply that that totally free speck - or
any other speck that is “realized - was suicidal or pro-death.
The pointer was offered earlier that what Jean Dunn called Maharaj's
awe-inspiring acceptance of mahasamadhi cannot happen if there is not total
freedom, that is, if total non-attachment to the personal has not happened . .
. if there is no longer any “tie.”
Understand, though, that non-attachment to the plant food body does not imply
the presence of a “death-wish.” The non-realized assume that if there is not a
life-wish, then there must be a death-wish. Not true.
Realized, the speck is freed from all personality identification, and since it is
each persona that brings a specific desire and a specific fear, then the
no-persona condition is a condition that is free of any wish, including a
life-wish or a death-wish.
True and full
realization is marked by a sense of neutrality regarding anything and
everything that cannot be controlled.
As among the naturally-abiding deer, all is merely witnessed without agenda and
without emotional intoxication. For those that have followed the teachings here
for awhile, you might recall a description of a fawn that was stillborn outside
the office window here.
Both pushed against the corpse with their heads, as if trying to inspire the fawn to stand. That went on for some time. Then, one or both would walk away, look aback, and then return and try once again to encourage the fawn lying in the grass a few from the window to rise and walk away with them.
The buck and doe
both displayed what was obviously some “feelings,” but there was no emotional
intoxication and they eventually moved on without attachment.
That is the way all manifestings and un-manifestings play out among the realized:
all is witnessed from a platform of neutrality, and the platform is always some
distance away from whatever relative happenings are playing out.
But in a culture
where “full-speed-ahead” is thought to be the only acceptable option, “neutral”
is seldom considered as an option at all.
In a culture where identification seldom moves beyond the “body level,” then
anyone not dedicated to the concepts of relative body continuity and eternal
body continuity is thought to be “insane.”
In a culture which began in the 1980’s to teach children about “The Rainbow Bridge” and how dead pets pass across that bridge to enter an other-worldly place “go “to live after death” and to be reunited with their owners. But that a newer story.
The older story is
the one which says (1) people will be reborn and will cycle through multiple lives
before crossing a mythical overpass Nirvana; or which says (2) people will
cross over a mythical overpass which connects earth and Heaven where pets and
relatives and friends will never have to part again (should they dodge the
possibility of being sent to Hell and its eternal flames notwithstanding).
Interesting, is it not, that the ones who have called “floyd” “flawed” or “insane”
or “lost” or “beyond salvation” have usually been among the 97% on the planet
who are attached to dogma-based beliefs that generate attachment to the body
and attachment to such insane beliefs as revealed in recent polls:
the critics over the years are among the 90%+ who believe that angels (i.e.,
half-bird / half-human, invisible creatures) are floating about all around them
and are protecting them;
20% of them now
claim that they've heard God speak to them;
25% say they have witnessed miraculous healings (so I “need to pray and need to
ask people to pray for me”);
16% say they've received a miraculous healing so they know it can work for me;
and
8% percent say that
they regularly pray in “unknown tongues” when the spirit moves within them and
provides a miraculous ability to speak in a foreign tongue not previously known
to them.
And those are just some of the nonsensical beliefs of those who have no clue at
all about total freedom, including total freedom from attachment to the plant
food body-cum-consciousness and attachment to desire-and-fear-generating
beliefs.
Again, the point is this: the non-realized masses believe that if you don't
have a life-wish, then you must have a death-wish. They do not understand what
nisarga living looks like.
The deer in this
neighborhood and everywhere else neither wish for life nor wish for death. They
abide naturally, just witnessing whatever is happening.
Last winter, a deer was seen lying in the edge of some woods near this house,
dying. After using the mobile phone to call the main office in the subdivision
for them to contact one of the game wardens that work in the area and then
awaiting his arrival, I knelt down and rubbed the deer along its neck. One of
its huge eyes stared at me, but there was no reaction other than a slight,
jerking motion when its neck was first touched.
Yet that deer did not whimper, did not moan, did not make a sound. There might
have been some discomfort, what with the physical pain and with a human being so close, but there was most
assuredly no fear of death being revealed in that eye.
Similarly, there was no sign of “hope,” no thinking “I sure hope I live.” Nor
was there any “wish,” no “I sure wish I could go ahead and die and end this
pain.”
When the warden completed his inspection and determined there was no
treatment that was going to extend the manifestation of consciousness in the
deer, he came back from his truck with a syringe.
Seeing the needle, there was no “change of heart” with the deer saying, “Wait!
Is there a chance I can make it for another year? How about one more month? How
about at least a week? Well can you give me just ten more seconds?!!! Is there
a chance for that much at least? Can you at least wait that long?”
No, it all ended quietly without agenda, all being witnessed from a platform of
neutrality, with no “this” preferred over “that” . . . over that which is
inevitable.
That is what total freedom looks like, and the deer abided in a state of total freedom throughout the manifestation, and the consciousness in that deer's plant food body unmanifested with total freedom. And the way it was for that deer, from “beginning” to “end,” is the same way it is for “the realized Nisargan.”
How many want to be as free as that deer, in living as well as in “dying”?
According to Maharaj, very few.
Yet the realized, abiding in the sense of oneness, ache when witnessing the results of the shooting in Uvalde, TX; when witnessing the murder and destruction in Ukraine; when witnessing the global effects of the Ultimate Sickness and its ignorance and stupidity and insanity;
and when witnessing U.S. politicians who have taken their thirty pieces of silver (or their 30,000,000 pieces of silver) from a gun lobby and now block all efforts to stop the insanity and to stop the slaughter of babies and children.
Republicans being asked, "Do you want to stop the slaughter of babies by way of abortion?" they answer loud and clear, "Hell yeah!"
When asked, "Do you want to stop the slaughter of babies by no longer allowing teens to buy weapons made for use in military combat?" they answer less loudly and quite unclearly, "Uh, no, not really."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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."
teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium.
