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.
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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.
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OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF BEING TOTALLY INDEPENDENT
“ . . . 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.
The NEWEST OFFER
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"From the I to the Absolute (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality");
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“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”
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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.
