Friday, May 13, 2022

OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF BEING TOTALLY INDEPENDENT

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[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."

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OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF BEING TOTALLY INDEPENDENT

 Of the thousands of pointers offered by Maharaj that proved to be germane to seekers, one ranks among the most pertinent and unequivocal and illuminating that he ever shared:

               “ . . . You are afraid of freedom!"

                    --Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

 In the early stage of stepping onto a non-dual “path” with a guide, he asked a qualifying question: "How free do you want to be?"

The typical reply: "Why, totally."

His response: "We shall see."

And soon, he did indeed see. What was seen by both that guide and most seekers was that there was no more of a desire to be totally free than there is a desire among the non-realized for the manifestation of the consciousness to end instantly.

Similarly, the case here was this: it would be years before full realization happened, and it would not be until full realization happened that total freedom not only manifested but was also gladly welcomed.

Why do persons (the non-realized) really not find total freedom appealing at all, truth be known? What is it about most cultures that nurture and even reward dependence? What is it about personality and personas that automatically require dependence and co-dependency rather than independence?

Approximately 7.76 billion persons polled worldwide who said that they are affiliated with an organized religion are taught early on to be dependent on one god or another (or even many). The millions in step groups are also taught to be dependent on an external, otherworldly power.

Too, every ego-state adopted as an identity must have a co-dependent counterpart and will be dependent on another person to sustain the false identity assumed. 

(For example, a spouse must have a spouse to supposedly "exist"; an employee must have an employer to supposedly "exist"; a teacher must have students to supposedly "exist"; etc.)

Add to that the fact that fifty-percent of the people on the planet are Personality Types Sixes who are embroiled in fear and are thus dependent types; add to that a large percentage who are Personality Type Twos and Threes and Nines who have a strong sense of entitlement and are therefore dependent types.

The result: it should be easy to understand why this planet is filled with humans who have been taught to be dependent on their “support group”; on their political leaders; and on - more than any other single source - some god or gods and goddesses.

In short, humans are taught to be dependent, not independent.

When my daughter was facing challenges during her sophomore year and was impacted by seeing that she was not even halfway through the process, her mother suggested that she drop out and move back in with family and go to a barber school and get a certificate and cut hair for a living.

I suggested that some persons do choose to have their hair cut professionally (though my Cherokee grandmother never had her hair cut ever cut at all and though I had been cutting my own hair for twenty years at the time and now for some 38 years).

I simply understood that a degree from a university with a global reputation could open other doors as well.

But, I suggested to her, maybe we can revisit what I had told her when she graduated from high school and in subsequent days when I encouraged her to stay with the program. 

In her family, she has seen a long line of totally dependent women who had been advised to find a man, and many females on my side of the family were the same.

She saw the BS that many of them tolerated because they had no saleable skills and were totally dependent on men - many of whom were total asses - to pay every bill they had. 

The attitude of many of those men seemed to be, “Hey, you are being bought and paid for every day, so you’re damn well going to do what I say.”

I asked her, “Do you recall what I said our motto should be?”

She smiled that “Yessss, Daddy” sardonic smile and said: “A man is not a plan.”

I replied: “Righto! And the rest of the advice I offered for you to consider was . . . ?

“If I end up staying with a man, you said it should be because I want to, not because I have to.”

I said, “Bingo! That 164 IQ is still working.”

She went on to graduate and her degree did not prep her for any of her assignments at the firms she has worked for, but her degree was a prerequisite for even submitting an application.

She has done well enough that she’s been able to remain totally independent and able to walk away from companies where some bosses treated their female employees with less professionalism than should be expected. 

She is currently staying with a “husband” and with an employer that she chooses to, not that she has to. 

That is not a promo for earning a college degree; it is a promo of doing all that is necessary to allow you to be independent.

All of that is the stuff of the relative, but the relative is key as long as the I AM remains manifested.

That said, the fact is that most cultures on the planet inspire dependence rather than independence, so it is little wonder that so few will realize fully and actually become totally free. 

Yet freedom is the prerequisite for peace, so it is also little wonder that so few will realize fully and be at peace.

So the questions for every seeker and reader are,

“How free do you really want to be?”


“Is it possible that Maharaj's pointer - ‘You are afraid of freedom’ - might be based at least to some degree in fact?”

and

“If so, might you be interested in certain considerations that might assist in overcoming that fear of total freedom?”


DEFINING FREEDOM - MAHARAJ

First, How did Maharaj define freedom? He said, “Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go of everything.” 

And that lack of willingness to let go is not confined to the 97% among the masses who are trapped in the ignorance of their prized, myth-based dogma.

Some of the most dogmatic of all persons are self-declared "Advaitins" or "Traditional Advanta Vedantins" or "Pseudo-Advaitins" or "Neo-Vedantins" or "Neo-Advaitins" or "Direct Path Advaitins" or "The Real Advaita Vedantins."

Freedom is freedom from belief in all duality, in all concepts, in all identification. Yet many who claim such freedom are in self-delusion. 

For example, some come here and remain for the entire dance; others, however, come for a brief visit or two and stay

(a) not long enough for their ego-states to be eradicated but only

(b) long enough for their ego-states to feel hurt or threatened or interfered with or offended. 

They leave quickly, staying long enough to report that non-duality is not understood at all here or long enough to leave a profane rant because “Floyd does not pronounce Eastern words properly.”

[Hell, growing up in the ignorance-dominated South in the U.S., I don’t even pronounce Western words properly.]

Can such egotism-driven persons take themselves to be fully realized and totally free? Yes, they can. 

It might be asked, “Of which version of Advaita Vedanta do they speak? Traditional, neo-Advaita, neo-Vedanta, Pseudo-Advaita, Direct Path?” and “Of which yoga do they speak? Hatha, bhakti, raja, gnana, nisarga, or some other?” Most haven’t a clue.

Is their issue that they think they know all there is to know about Advaita Vedanta or non-duality though they have been exposed to only one method of teaching or to only one yoga?

Did they reach the mountaintop with a pack mule carrying their equipment? Does that mean that one whose equipment was carried by a sherpa and is standing on the same mountaintop has not really reached the mountaintop because he / she did not arrive in the exact, same fashion as the one deciding who has reached the mountaintop and who has not?

Is it possible that the one who is not free at all and who is making such judgments is having to look upward, not really having reached a mountaintop at all? Is it possible that the truly realized see no such levels of “higher vs. lower” “. . . top vs. not-top”?

Or does it mean that the judgmental types have no freedom at all, that they are driven by their egotism-supported ego-states to move through the relative existence while making their uninvited visits to one place after another, telling all who are different from them how wrong they are?

Is the preoccupation with such differences that drives their “me vs. them” campaigning actually evidence of how totally embroiled in duality they really are?

To use Maharaj's words, what is it that they are not willing to “let go of?” The role of “The Knower”? The ego-state of “The Spiritual Giant Who Is Cursed to Walk Among Spiritual Lilliputians?” 

Are there roles which you, similarly, prefer not to “let go of”? Could Maharaj be correct? Could it be that if you were truly objective, you might have to admit that, indeed, you are to some degree afraid of freedom (at least freedom that is the only real type of freedom that there is, namely, total freedom)?

Beyond the 97% who are lost in the dream of the superstition-based teachings of the major sky cults, consider also those who might stumble upon the teachings here but are lost in the role and in the agenda of “The Real Advaita Vedantin” mentioned above.

Is there any real freedom exhibited by their behavior that is so obviously driven by the subconscious agenda of a persona? The questions to be asked include . . .

". . . WHO (what false ego-states) are so attached to personhood that they have no clue at all that their thoughts and words and actions are determined by their egotism-driven persona(s)?"

". . . WHO (what false ego-states) are so lost in the illusory sense of 'having Realized' that they cannot see that they are not free at all?

How to “test” any “non-dual guide,” be it the one here or anywhere else? Ask, “Does this “guide” want me to believe what she / he believes?”

Here, there is no one who wants anyone to believe anything. The invitation is to “un-believe” all, to un-learn all.

To be continued.

Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

 

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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.] 

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