Friday, June 03, 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."

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.

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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.)

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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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"From the I to the Absolute (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality");


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“Liberation (Attaining Freedom from Personality via Realization)”


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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.] 

Here's

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of the "Awakening Together" satsang session with Regina and Jacqueline referenced earlier, 
18 MARCH 2018

or

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