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.
OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF BEING TOTALLY INDEPENDENT
DEFINING FREEDOM – MAHARAJ
Earlier we saw how Maharaj defined freedom: “Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go of everything.”
Others involved in sharing the non-dual message have also defined freedom as they see it:
DEFINING FREEDOM LOUISE STERLING
Louise lives in Cape Town, S.A. and asked some relevant questions regarding the search for freedom:
“Freedom is impersonal – how can you expect to find it when you are so attached to your personhood?”
“Freedom is formless – how can you expect to find it when you are committed to your form?”
“Freedom is limitless – how can you expect to find it if you are defined by what is particular and limited?”
“Freedom is without attributes – how can you expect to find it when you define yourself according to your characteristics?”
DEFINING FREEDOM - CONVENTIONAL SOURCES
And what are some of the conventional definitions of freedom that are offered in a variety of dictionaries? Here are a few:
a. the power to act or speak or think without externally-imposed restraints;
b. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.;
c. the power to determine action without restraint;
d. exemption from the presence of anything specified - for example, freedom
from fear;
e. ease or facility of movement or action; and,
f. in philosophy, the power to exercise choice and make decisions without
constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-determination.
OBSTACLES TO FINDING FREEDOM: LIVING UNDER THE AUSPICES OF PERSONALITY
Yet consider: when personality determines thoughts, words and deeds - which personality does - then none of the above forms of freedom can manifest.
If one is driven by the agenda of a personality, then there is no power to act
or speak or think without the externally-imposed restraints of personality.
The person cannot be exempt from the external control and interference and
regulation of one or more agenda-driven personas.
Living under the auspices of personality, there can be no ability to determine
action without restraint.
Living under the auspices of personality, there is no exemption from the
presence of such personality-specified aspects such as desire and fear.
Living under the auspices of personality (which determines all thoughts and all
words and all actions) there can be no ease or facility of movement or action.
Living under the auspices of personality, there can be no power to exercise
choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without.
As long as all is self-determined (determined by the false self) then there can
be no other determining factors (such as, determined by the natural, spontaneous aspects of the
unblocked, pure consciousness).
Realization is, among other things, about freedom from ignorance and
irrationality and insanity . . . about being restored to sanity.
What could be more ignorant and irrational and insane that believing that one is free when one is bound up in personality, imprisoned by delusions, trapped in the cage of one's “mind,” and living under the auspices of egotism-driven ego-states?
OBSTACLES TO FINDING FREEDOM: EARLY EXPOSURE TO PROGRAMMING, CONDITIONING, ACCULTURATION, DOMESTICATION, BRAINWASHING AND INDOCTRINATION
Again, Maharaj said, “ . . . You are afraid of freedom!” Being made to be afraid of freedom and to preferring dependency and co-dependency begins early on during childhood.
From very early on, all persons become robbed and kidnapped.
First, they are robbed by their parents and their cultures of the simple existence that any body-cum-consciousness would and should otherwise enjoy, leaving to all persons an inheritance that no sane person would want (or accept), namely, a very complex, complicated, and restricted relative existence.
Next, they are kidnapped, and their case is not unlike that which appears in so
many mystery novels: characters are kidnapped, bags are thrown over their heads
so they can no longer see, they are knocked unconscious, and when they awake to
a tiny degree, they find they are locked away in one of a variety of rooms or
cells.
Sometimes in mystery novels or movies, a hero comes along to rescue them, but
in most instances of an actual kidnapping, there is no rescue . . . there is no
escape.
The realized guide is no hero or rescuer but does deal with those who
have been robbed and kidnapped and who have been blinded and cannot see;
with those who have been rendered unconsciousness even though they continue to
walk about and talk; and with those who are locked away in a state of
entrapment. Imprisoned among the ranks of the non-realized, most will never
escape.
Thus, the non-realized masses have been blinded and cannot see, and they are
walking about and talking though unconscious; however, there is one difference
from the kidnapped people in mystery novels:
the non-realized are totally
unaware that they have been locked away . . . totally unaware that they are in
a state of entrapment . . . totally unaware that they are not free.
Might a nagging sense of their condition manifest? On some occasions, but
having no means by which the lies and restrictions of their culture can be seen
and discarded in order for truth and freedom to come, they shake off the
sensation and continue with their boring and confining existence.
Indeed, the real mystery in all cases among the non-realized becomes: “I don't
even know who I am anymore!” and “Who Am I?” and “What happens when we die?”
and “I sense I am something more than this body, but what?” or “This
relationship makes me feel like I am in jail”
or
“My addiction has left me in bondage, hooked on work or spiritual work
or control or power or money or shopping or drugs or alcohol or food or
nicotine or a plethora of false identities or, yes, even hooked on my addiction
to chaos.”
Yet most will never wake up enough to even ask those questions or to make those
statements.
[George Carlin said, “It’s called ‘the American Dream’ because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Note: A two-part HBO documentary on Carlin’s fifty years in comedy entitled George Carlin’s American Dream will begin on May 20th. Its content will reveal among other things how - as happened with Maharaj - his understanding and his message evolved as he moved more and more toward the sharing of non-dual pointers while exposing all of the lies and distortions of hypocritical cultures and their hypocritical religious, political, and big business leaders. Warnings about “language” will be attached.]
Most persons eventually become so “comfortable” with their discomfort that they
normalize it and minimize it and become afraid of freedom: “Better to be in
prison with company than to be free but alone,” they think unconsciously
(without even knowing what they are actually thinking).
That is the typical condition of the relative existence for most persons, so
the discussion will continue only for the few who might come and who might be
willing to at least consider the possibly . . .
. . . that they were robbed early on,
. . . that they have been kidnapped,
. . . that they were hoodwinked,
. . . that they have been unconscious for most of their existence, and
. . . that they are not free at all.
There can be no freedom when the answers to the most basic questions remain a
mystery and cannot be answered. When the answers are not known, then the false
ideas in one's culture will be accepted as truth; then, a limited, confined,
and confining existence becomes the only possibility for the robbed, kidnapped,
hoodwinked, unconscious, imprisoned masses.
Maharaj said that false ideas about the ‘I am’ lead to bondage; freedom from
belief in false ideas leads to freedom and happiness.
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."
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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.”
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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.
