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.
The interview is available for viewing by clicking on video "NUMBER THIRTEEN" in the column to the right.]
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.
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.
7. You may click here
to visit Floyd's bookstore which offers both digital books and paperback books which
deal with non-duality, non-duality-based fictional adventures, recovery,
financial sanity, financial planning, and more.
Grasping a Clearer Understanding of Non-Dual Terms
Months ago a series was offered which focused on popular but totally false phrases and statements which are presented as non-dual pointers.
After months of preparatory discussions which
(a) provided an opportunity for non-dual seekers to be open to revisiting, objectively, much of what they had read and heard over the years about non-duality
and which
(b) invited seekers to consider abandoning not only their not beliefs about what the actual non-dual message might be and what it most certainly is not about.
This series began with an opportunity to focus in even more depth on those popular phrases and statements discussed earlier and to see why they are actually based in duality and thus make no sense at all.
That said, the focus now is on “seekers’ propensities and humankind’s propensities” which block a grasping of the non-dual understanding.
Today’s focus will be on . . .
SEEKERS’ PROPENSITIES: TO ACCUMULATE MORE RATHER THAN DE-ACCUMULATE ALL
Maharaj explained that "knowledge" is itself "learned ignorance."
He said in the end that realization is simply the condition of being free from functioning under the influence of learned ignorance.
He said: "Realization is but the opposite of ignorance."
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
There are actually fours stages and ages through which humans pass should their existence last long enough:
Stage One ages 1-20 are swamped with programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination, and brainwashing.
Of those, it is the programming to accumulate which often marks and mars the entire relative existence in many Western cultures, including . . . to accumulate roles and identities; to accumulate “knowledge” (a.k.a., per Maharaj, “learned ignorance”); to accumulate ideas and beliefs and concepts; to accumulate manufactured body parts to enhance appearance;
to accumulate caretakers / “replacement parents” who will pay for one’s housing expenses, for one’s clothing, for one’s food, for one’s car notes, for one’s medical bills, etc.; to accumulate things; to accumulate places; and even to accumulate people.
Stage Two ages 20-40 involve being willing to become subsumed in the dualistic beliefs which were learned via acculturation and conditioning and domestication and programming and indoctrination and brainwashing
and
involve being willing to continue the process of blind accumulation; to accept and normalize an eventual sense of emptiness; and then either . . .
1. continue with an effort to accumulate even more to address the sense of emptiness, or
2. become obsessed with the effort to find all that you are not but which was erroneously taken to be authentic.
The latter can happen as a result of suddenly seeing, to at least some degree, the forty years of phoniness; seeing the senselessness of unchecked consumption; seeing the insanity of having been lost in the dream of the planet; seeing the multitude of phony roles played out in The Theatre of the Lie;
seeing the dependency on outer resources and the blind willingness to believe the lies of the culture which are taught by so-called "experts" and religious leaders and spiritual guides;
seeing how developing and maintaining an image displaced any concern with authenticity; and seeing how many years have been preoccupied with seeking either reward or avoiding punishment now and seeking eternal reward vs. avoiding eternal punishment later.
At this point, the Ultimate Sickness might well be glimpsed; if so, then the search moves beyond relativistic accumulation and begins to move toward a search for the Ultimate Medicine.
If #2 above happens, then seeking continues, but the tenor of the search changes as truth is no longer sought in the culture's established venues and is no longer sought via those thought to be "experts" or via "the popular religious and / or spiritual leaders."
There will no longer be a willingness to be led by the famous authors nor by the famous lecturers nor by the Big Names Teachers whom Maharaj warned seekers to avoid.
Moreover, the direction of the search will not be steered by those who focus on popular, relative issues which they serve up with a smattering of noumenal terminology in order to deliver a message which will "seem to be spiritual" but which will be filled by nonessential and not actually non-duality-based pointers of the type which will be popular among the masses and which will hook them and them money.
Yet that re-focusing will not free any seeker from attachment to false identities and false concepts. If freedom is to come, it can only begin to come when, as explained earlier, there is at least enough "contact" with the inner resource / inner guru to be able to differentiate between the words of a famous talker as opposed to the pure, universal consciousness which speaks via “a truly realized teacher.”
At that point, the actual "journey" can begin if the readiness has come to question every idea and belief and concept and if the willingness has come to be guided along a "path" (here, a "direct path") which runs counter to all that was rooted in accumulation.
Instead, the “path” here is a path to de-accumulation, being un-taught, to unlearning, to discarding, to being free of the effects of having been driven by learned nonsense and by personality disorders and by insanity and by belief in the lies perpetuated by the ignorant (or the manipulative) and accepted as truth by the masses.
After twenty years of being programming to accumulate and after twenty years of trying to accumulate, then Stage Three can come when a change might begin . . . or not.
Stage Three offers a fork in the road, but few take the fork which can lead to realization.
For most (Maharaj estimated over 99%), the efforts to accumulate will continue for an entire lifetime as most persons will never realize; yet, for the few who are awake enough to be aware of the emptiness of years of focusing on accumulation, a shift might begin.
Stage Four: For the few, the “path” to realization may be taken. For most, however, they will never be "cerebral" but will forever be what I call cacarebral instead.
At that point, if one happens to cross paths with a sane and rationale guidance, then the seeker can transition to the Fourth Stage. Then, the seeking will be directed and re-directed, within.
If the directions of a guide that fully understands are followed, then it is possible that the accumulation of blockages which have prevented the pure consciousness from seeing clearly and perceiving accurately will be de-accumulated.
All which is false will be seen to be false by way of moving along the "path" and eventually understanding that which is actually true.
Stage IV: The De-Accumulation / Actual "Journey" Stage
This stage begins with the seeker's willingness to be guided through a series of pointers which can remove the belief that the false is true, which can remove the belief that one's identity is personal and individualized, and which can remove the belief that the seeker's identity has something to do with a body and a mind and personality
or
with phony roles, states-of-being, personas / personality identifications, ego-states, characters, acts, play actors, posers, shams, fakes, frauds, imposters, bit players, appearances, performances, guises, masks, ad infinitum.
For the masses, however, the desire to accumulate will be the driving force throughout their existence.
The realized merely see all exactly as it is yet still live in a contented, AS IF fashion that allows peace to happen whether “in relationship” or not, whether “in love” or not, or whether “married” or not.
The realized are driven by nothing, including relative desires, relative fears, or relative perceptions of need. That is never the case with persons (the non-realized). Total freedom can happen, no matter what your circumstances might be.
A key question thus becomes, “Are you truly ready to be totally free?” Most will say, "Yes, of course!"; however, their behavior says, "Well, maybe not truly ready and maybe not totally free."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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.
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for someone and offer recommendations for the books in Floyd's store which might be of assistance to them.
Or,
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(b) Purchase the ebook you’d like to send.
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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.
