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.
FREEDOM FROM BELIEFS (Believers, Non-Believers, and “No-Belief-ers”)
“People are capable sometimes of the strangest of transactions: they pay with their own lives for something as abstract and seemingly inconsequential as an idea."
(Costica Bradatan)
“This-ism,
that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m.”
(John Lennon / Yoko Ono)
“
. . . Stop imagining yourself to be ‘this’ or ‘that.’ Just be.”
(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)
“Neti-Neti”
(Non-Duality Pointer to Identity-Less-Ness)
“Here,
there is nothing that is believed, so there is no one here who wants you to
believe anything, either. Here, the invitation is to be free of all that you
have been programmed, conditioned, acculturated, domesticated, indoctrinated,
and brainwashed to believe so that you can be free, period.”
(f.h.)
OTHER POSSIBLE, 180-DEGREE
OPPOSITE PERSPECTIVES
[Continued from yesterday]
Is it clear that those who are driven to talk the most are the most removed from Reality? Is it clear why the truth can be known but cannot be spoken? Is it clear, therefore, why all that is verbalized by those among the non-realized masses is to be ignored, just as you would ignore a mirage in the desert and for the same reason, namely, because it is false?
For nonsensical words and deeds to end, persons must be rid of their belief in the concepts and ideas that generate the thinking which leads to nonsensical talking and nonsensical behaviors. Yet in cultures where “freedom of speech” is valued far more than freedom from silence - such as in the U.S. - then talking flourishes, talk radio flourishes, talk shows on television flourish.
And they all add to
the already-widespread dissemination of nonsense and falsehoods that are
unquestioningly accepted around the globe as being true.
In the “war on nonsense,” one suggestion to those taking the steps to realization
and to freedom from beliefs is this: simultaneously become conscious of words
that are spoken while sleepwalking or while trying to awaken.
By that means,
there can be launched a two-fold assault on babble and claptrap—attacking the
base of nonsense (“the mind”) as well as the nonsense being spoken by persons
who are out on patrol each day and spreading foolishness in a verbal fashion as
they go.
Maharaj invited seekers to be precise and exact with word choice. That can only
happen when one stops talking in his / her sleep and is conscious of what is
being said. Grandmother and her fellow Cherokees and others among the so-called
“indigenous peoples of the Americas” taught that . . .
. . . “Truth is nothing more than
the space between exhalation and inhalation.” Do you understand why some non-dual guides offer the pointer that “silence speaks”?
Again,
(A) Truth cannot be stated, so only in the silence can the truth be known;
(B) only in the silence can the inner resource / inner guru be heard; and
(C) only in the space between exhalation and inhalation can truth be realized.
One of the most basic ways to begin the shift to total freedom from believing
false beliefs is to stop the nourishment of them where they are planted (in “the
mind”) by forming the new habit of not expressing those beliefs in words. Why?
Because the expression and repetition of false beliefs is an act that only reinforces - and gives even more bogus credibility to - all false beliefs. Any method that can interrupt the thought-word-deed continuum can be compared to a disruption in the supply line in the “battle” between the truth and false beliefs.
To remain in the “silence”
is to put an end to the use of the words that allow senseless thoughts to
generate senseless actions.
Regarding that “battle,” Maharaj said:
“Was there ever a world without troubles? Your being as a person depends on
violence to others. Your very body is a battlefield, full of the dead and
dying. Existence implies violence.”
He said: “You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred
and war.”
To that end, he was asked:
Questioner: “Can I avoid this protracted battle with my mind?”
Maharaj: “Yes, you can. Just live your life as it comes, but alertly,
watchfully, allowing everything to happen as it happens, doing the natural
things the natural way, suffering, rejoicing -- as life brings. This also is a
way.”
And later:
Maharaj: “It is only a question of incompletion. He who could not complete his
Yoga for some reason is called failed in Yoga. Such failure is only temporary,
for there can be no defeat in Yoga. This battle is always won, for it is a
battle between the true and the false. The false has no chance.”
Yet it is the false that presently dominates the masses and the planet. If
senseless actions can be prevented, then the addiction to chaos might lose its
lustre.
And if the upgrading of senseless words and senseless actions fade, then senseless thoughts that are given so much status in most cultures might also begin to “die on the vine” - that is, “in the mind.”
Questions have been
raised over the years regarding certain pointers shared earlier regarding “one’s
head being in the clouds” and about “transcending spiritual and / or religious
roles” and “man-fabricated religious and spiritual knowledge.”
Also challenged are the pointer that it is an insane belief that drives some
seekers to “abandon a phenomenal dream state, only to reside in a supposedly ‘noumenal’
dream state” where they have their heads “in the clouds without having one’s
feet planted firmly on the ground”
and
the pointer that “those persons fail to understand that they are actually
seeing no more of The Light with their heads in the clouds than the persons
planted on the ground who also cannot see the sun because of the clouds.”
The challenges were coming from one who believes many false beliefs, including
the false belief that he “has become spiritual.” He does not know that he
cannot “become spiritual,” cannot “become better,” and, actually, cannot “become”
anything.
“To become” is “to change or grow or develop into something specific and
different; to enhance or improve; to be upgraded; to be better than before; to
change for the better”; or, conversely, “to worsen or to get worse” or “to be
downgraded” or “to deteriorate,” as in:
1. “She became a much better person after she joined that group.”
2. “He became more religious - even spiritual - after he married her and
settled down.”
3. “He was raised the right way by good parents, but he sure did deteriorate
later one - really went downhill.”
4. “That one lucked out and found a super spouse” or “that one had a streak of
bad luck and ended up with three really rotten spouses in a row.”
5. Or, as the defensive visitor who was mentioned above believes, “I have
become spiritual and now I see the light; as a result of understanding
non-duality, I have become a far better person than I was before”
and
6. “If you do not think Advaita Vedanta is all about becoming spiritual, then
you do not know what you are talking about.”
Here, it is made clear that along “the path,” “religious and / or spiritual
roles” (or “religious-like or spiritual-like” roles) will be assumed and played
at the third of seven steps.
Typically, heads must enter the clouds in an effort to try to see things
noumenal, in order to break - to some degree at least - the attachment only to
things phenomenal and to be motivated to seek the light.
Yet the fact
remains, one cannot see any more light with his head in the clouds than a
person standing on the ground, gazing skyward on a cloudy day, and also having
the light blocked from view.
The problem with the assumption of those roles is that seekers typically fixate
at that point - at the level that Maharaj called “kindergarten spirituality.”
In describing their circumstance, Krishna was not especially “kind” when discussing the ego / ego-state that is assumed at that level, suggesting that those who do not understand that Reality is beyond both beingness and non-beingness are “fools.”
Thus, such supposed beingness, including “being spiritual,” is a trap if one does not eventually “transcend spiritual and / or religious roles” and if one does not transcend “man-fabricated religious and spiritual knowledge” (which are two pointers from the book “Freedom From Beliefs” which were also challenged by the visitor quoted above.)
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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If you prefer PAPERBACK copies
(collected in two anthologies).
Links for ordering are below with
BARNES and NOBLE presently providing better service
than AMAZON
when it come to fulfilling orders for
paperback and hardcover books
as opposed to delivering digital books.
[NOTE: Wherever you live, you can search for the books below by title with booksellers in your country. With 40,000+ retailers distributing my paperback books, you may order from U.S. stores or you may find someone nearer to you.]
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."
from BARNES AND NOBLE by clicking here
or (sometimes less efficiently nowadays in terms of paperback delivery)
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.”
Order a PAPERBACK copy of The Blissful Abidance Series
from Amazon by clicking here.
SEND A GIFT BOOK TO SOMEONE
(1) 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.
Or,
(2) To make an arrangement for us to send in your name as a gift from you any of our books to someone you choose:
(a) Visit www.floydhenderson.com.
(b) Purchase the ebook you’d like to send.
(c) Contact us using the email below, tell us which ebook you just purchased, and provide the name and email address of the person you want to send the ebook to. (They will never be contacted again or solicited for any reason.)
Send your information to:
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.
If you prefer PAPERBACK copies
(collected in two anthologies).
Links for ordering are below with
BARNES and NOBLE presently providing better service
than AMAZON
when it come to fulfilling orders for
paperback and hardcover books
as opposed to delivering digital books.
[NOTE: Wherever you live, you can search for the books below by title with booksellers in your country. With 40,000+ retailers distributing my paperback books, you may order from U.S. stores or you may find someone nearer to you.]
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."
from BARNES AND NOBLE by clicking here
or (sometimes less efficiently nowadays in terms of paperback delivery)
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.”
Order a PAPERBACK copy of The Blissful Abidance Series
from Amazon by clicking here.
SEND A GIFT BOOK TO SOMEONE
(1) 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.
Or,
(2) To make an arrangement for us to send in your name as a gift from you any of our books to someone you choose:
(a) Visit www.floydhenderson.com.
(b) Purchase the ebook you’d like to send.
(c) Contact us using the email below, tell us which ebook you just purchased, and provide the name and email address of the person you want to send the ebook to. (They will never be contacted again or solicited for any reason.)
Send your information to:
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.
