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
A visitor wrote: “What you said to Louise about everything was happening at “the level of experience” obviously was a turning point for her and allowed her to attain the total freedom you talk about.
“But I can still relate to what she was
saying about the stress of being a single parent and trying to pay the bills,
so please explain “at the level of experience” so i might reach that turning
point, too.”
The reply: First, allow a foundation to be laid for your understanding of
what “at the level of experience” means; then, you will understand that there
was no “louise” that “attained” anything. Consider this exchange:
Questioner: “Is the witness-consciousness permanent or not?”
Maharaj:
“It is not permanent. The knower rises and sets with the known. That in which
both the knower and the known arise and set, is beyond time. The words
permanent or eternal do not apply.”
So, too, are the experience and experiencer not permanent. The experiencer
rises and sets with the experience. That in which both the experience and the
experiencer arise and set is beyond time.
Consider also:
Questioner: “To me consciousness is always focalised, centred, individualised,
a person. You seem to say that there can be perceiving without a perceiver,
knowing without a knower, loving without a lover, acting without an actor. I
feel that the trinity of knowing, knower and known can be seen in every
movement of life. Consciousness implies a conscious being, an object of
consciousness and the fact of being conscious. That which is conscious I call a
person. A person lives in the world, is a part of it, affects it and is
affected by it.”
Maharaj:
“Why don't you enquire how real are 'the world' and 'the person'?”
As there is the misconception that there is the “trinity” of knowing, the
knower, the known, so there are the misconceptions that there are
(A) a triad of the body-mind-personality and
(B) the trinity of experiencing, the experiencer, and the experience.
Yes,
what is to be known (actually, “understood”) can be discussed along the way,
such as, “The Truth can be known but cannot be stated”; however, farther along
the multi-step “path,” all of that gives way, first, to subject-object
witnessing and then to pure witnessing.
This pointer have been offered previously: “The corrupted consciousness is the
knower of concepts, the thinker of thoughts, the accepter of lies as truth, the
emoter of emotions, the experiencer of pain and suffering, the accepter of
ideas rooted in myths, and the believer of false beliefs.”
And this also: “Next, among all forms-cum-consciousness other than programmed
persons, the intuitive knowing functions without being known. There is a point
on the 'journey' when knowing is sensed directly and consciously. Post-realization,
the intuitive knowing continues to function without any conscious consideration
and without any sense of 'A Knower'.” Consider the way that deer live, for
example.
Yet all pointers are level appropriate. What might make sense to one seeker at
one point could - to a seeker at another level - be most confusing and could seem
contradictory.
This was offered as well: “To understand what is happening on either side of
the border is to understand the difference in the manifested consciousness and
the unmanifested potential of the no-knowing awareness.
“That understanding will allow 'The Knower' to dissolve even as the
consciousness remains manifest. That understanding will allow for abidance in
the stability of the Absolute (and for some seekers, abidance as that which is
even beyond) as opposed to the constant movement of the manifested
consciousness.”
So, what some refer to as “the trinity of experiencing, the experiencer, and
the experience” shall meet the same fate of dissolution: eventually, belief in
that trinity shall dissolve once it is understood that there is nothing nor any
“one” that is experiencing - that all is merely being witnessed either by the
corrupted, blocked consciousness or by the pure, unblocked consciousness.
Never again use the pronoun “I” unless it is clear that “I” refers to nothing
except the witnessing consciousness. Here, no “i” (a.k.a., “floyd”) speaks; it
is I, the Pure Consciousness only, which speaks.
Once that understanding comes, then it is understood that there is not - and
never was - an experiencer involved with whatever happenings were happening; it
will be understood that the happenings were merely being witnessed; and it will
be understood that even the “experience” itself was not real? Why?
Because it will be understood that all thought to be “experiences” were based
in the misperceptions of the corrupted consciousness that was witnessing in a
most unclear fashion because of the blockages set in place by programming, conditioning,
acculturation, domestication, indoctrination and brainwashing. To further
clarify, consider this exchange with a seeker who was completing the Advaita
Internet Course:
Floyd asked: “Who / What Are You, Really?”
Anthony wrote in response: “There is no Who. Conscious-energy simply manifested
in the space formed by a collection of elements.”
F.: “Yes! A temporary, limited space exists because a collection of plant food elements
has formed what is referred to as a 'body.'; oxygen is circulating into it and out of it; there, energy has
manifested, including conscious-energy. All energy comes and goes and must be replenished in order for "life" to continue.
“That is all that is happening with 'anthony' or 'floyd' or 'anyBODY.'
Understand that and then when ego and egotism appear, the only questions to
pause and ask are:
“Can the body offended?” NO. “Can the breath be offended”? NO. “Can energy - including conscious-energy, be offended”? NO. Go scream at the
energy at a wall outlet in the kitchen and see if it can be offended. It
cannot, so the only thing that can be offended (that is, supposedly ‘hurt or
interfered with or threatened’) is an illusory ego-state."
So what happens when
the body (or “this life”) ends?
Anthony replied: “Breath - returns to the universal pool of air. Elements -
return to the universal pool of elements. Consciousness - returns to the
universal pool. It cannot be created or destroyed.”
Floyd finished with: “End of that story, and the end of volumes of nonsense,
yes?”
For Louise, freedom did not come until “louise” was freed of belief in “the
trinity of experiencing, the experiencer, and the experience.” Afterwards, for
a period, she might have identified with
(1) “The Pure Witness”; later, she would shift to identifying with
(2)
Pure Witnessing.
Even later, total freedom came when, for a period, she identified with
(3) The Nothingness before, eventually,
(4)
even that identification fell away and the remainder of the relative is now
unfolding in the nisarga fashion with the no-identity, no-concept, non-dual “Reality”
overlaid upon “reality” – upon the relative.
May the message of that freedom beyond the level of experience come to you and
be understood by you.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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
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“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.