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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NEEDLESS WORK, COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE ACCEPTANCE and THE CURSE OF HABITS
An Introduction to the Four Major Non-Duality Teaching Methods, to One Non-Method and to Maharaj’s Final No-Teaching Approach
(continued)
Now, more on the methods. The methods will be discussed in no particular sequence in order to avoid the implication that the methods are being ranked, but Pseudo Advaita will be discussed first in order to set it aside and to be done with it once and for all.
A NON-METHOD: Pseudo Advaita
Pseudo Advaita is the non-method of teaching non-duality. Again, Maharaj warned against “The Big Name Teachers.” They claim enlightenment and charge exorbitant rather than nominal fees for teaching the teachings to seekers.
Pseudo Advaita may well be the most used method / non method of all.
In early 2011, a man came for the 3-day retreat offered here. The week before, he had paid ten times the fee for the three-day visit here. That ten-times sum had been paid to a teacher who charges $5000.00 for a man in Costa Rica “to teach people how to breathe.”
Others who have come here have reported that they spent thousands of dollars for a workshop that basically used a phrase ("love it all") to teach denial and repression and minimizing while encouraging participants to put a mental spin on reality and on traumatic events by encouraging participants to love everything that happens.
Such a message has nothing to do with non-duality and is actually dualistic itself, “love it all” being one-half of the “love it all vs. hate it all” dualistic pair.
Maharaj warned: “If you seek out the big name teachers, you'll get what you deserve.”
Here, the message is, “If you seek via the big name teachers, you are not likely to get what you are seeking.” Why?
Because no one deserves to be conned and sabotaged the way that woman does.
In the end, these teachings are about non-teaching and about un-learning, not about learning more; they are about de-accumulation rather than getting more or gaining more.
At least eight of the richest, most famous teachers nowadays studied the teachings of Maharaj, took a piece here and there, and then adapted his teachings to come up with versions which are popular among the cash-spending masses. Why? Because little about the pure, truth-revealing version of the non-duality understanding will be popular among the masses.
TEACHING METHOD: Traditional Advaita
This is the method regarded as the one defined by Shankara in his discussion of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Suttras around the 8th century AD. This approach is defined by those scriptures which some claim are the source of truth.
TEACHING METHOD: Neo-Vedanta
The term “Neo-Vedanta” refers primarily to the method used by Vivekananda and his followers. Some critics consider this method a “watered down” version of Traditional Advaita, a result of the fact that Vivekananda and his followers have tried to make the teachings more suitable to Western tastes where concepts and ego-states have dominated persons for millennia.
[NOTE: Neo-Vedanta teachers typically employ seemingly sublime or exalted or emotion-inspiring statements which encourage followers to adopt more concepts and identities instead of encouraging seekers to forfeit all concepts and identities.
Some examples of the concept offered via the neo-Vedanta Method include such advise as: dream on an idea and be full of it and you’ll succeed; believe in yourself; make yourself strong; find god and gain power; use thoughts to create a new reality;
engage in the noble goal of seeking knowledge; you are responsible for what you are; acquire power; and seek love. Such concepts are in direct opposition to the understanding presented via the Direct Path, Nisarga yoga approach.]
TEACHING METHOD: Neo-Advaita
The teachers who use this method see no need for study, questioning or inquiring into anything. Claiming that they recognize only reality, and knowing that there is no seeker, they conclude that there is nothing to seek and nothing to teach.
Often, the result is that even the most diligent seekers who try to attain the understanding with Neo-Advaita teachers can become very confused. Neo-Advaitins suggest that no path is required since there is no “one” to follow the “path.”
[NOTE: Whatever understanding which comes to some who follow the “Direct Path Method” to its end is assumed by Neo-Advaita teachers to be a given from the very beginning.]
Some who adhere to this method reject the name “Neo-Advaita” outright.
That leaves the “Direct Path Method” and the Nisarga Yoga approach to be discussed. Based on the descriptions above, the reader might be seeing why so much searching has resulted in what some describe as “one contradiction after another.”
There are some very clear differences in
message and methodology employed by different guides. The wise seeker will
take those variances into account when selecting a guide and a method to employ when seeking full realization and full liberation . . .
(specifically, liberation from what Maharaj referred to as the three most prevalent drivers among the human masses, namely “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity.”
TEACHING METHOD: The Direct Path
First, the following pointers about the Direct
Path Method have been offered by a host of other Advaitin guides. These are
the basic principles of the Direct Path Method which distinguish it from the
other methods:
1. This method provisionally acknowledges “the seeker” and “the guru” though
proclaiming unambiguously that there are no personal identities and only authenticity.
2. The Direct Path provides a means by which untruth is removed via arguments.
3. The teachers that use this method understand that once realization happens,
life carries on with itself, by itself, without our intervention.
4. Inventory and inquiry - not bhakti or worship or disciplines - is the principle means of
realizing.
5. There is no do-er.
6. Beliefs must be deconstructed and discarded for realization to happen.
7. Rather than seeking without (via god, gods, or “holy” writings) the Direct Path Method emphasizes seeing directly that truth which can be known from within, via the inner guru or the inner resource.
[NOTE: The gurus / teachers that use this
method always eventually invite the seeker to go within but only after the
obstacles which block seeing with clarity - namely, obstacles such as concepts
and beliefs - have been removed.]
8. After realization comes via an understanding of the pointers offered via the
Direct Path Method, the natural freedom of one’s true nature prevails for the
remainder of the manifestation (hence, the connection with the Nisarga Yoga, or
natural yoga, approach).
9. The Direct Path Method is not goal-oriented or prescriptive (as is
Neo-Vedanta, for example) and attempts to simply point out the way things are
(or the way THINGS ARE NOT but are thought to be).
10. Often using present experiences as data or examples, the Direct Path Method deconstructs the existing body of presumptions, the belief systems, and the psychological structures - all of which make persons feel separate, vulnerable, and cut off from reality.
[NOTE: What persons call “problems” all arise
via the warped consciousness, the bogus “mind,” the ego-states assumed as
identities by persons, and the personality disorders that result; therefore,
the guide that uses the Direct Path Method must have some advanced
understanding of the principles of psychology.]
11. When the illogical, unreasonable, and irrational nature of psychological
structures are held up to the light of awareness for a seeker that is capable
of being logical and reasonable and rational, the psychological structures
peacefully dissolve.
12. An awakening happens that is marked by sweetness, by an immediacy, and by a
gapless clarity which is awareness itself. And quite often, laughter
accompanies the peripetia - that
seeing of the truth that others have seen but that the seeker only now sees.
13. The Direct Path Method actually does not prescribe a “path” or “journey” as such since you are already that which you seek to understand (namely, what is eternal - matter / energy - and what is not);
however, unlike the Neo-Advaita approach, a student-guru arrangement and an advancement along “the path” via certain revelations is usually required. Why?
Because the understanding must be delivered in
a series of progressive “steps” that must be taken in an exact order. The
advanced steps are built on the foundation of the preceding steps, so each step
must be understood completely before a seeker can move to the next.
14. Rather than practicing disciplines and adhering to esoteric paths and preachings, this method attempts instead to deconstruct persons’ everyday view of “the world” and “themselves” in order to guide protégés to an understanding of what they are not.
[NOTE: With realization, the following are all
understood: consciousness, awareness, the beingness, the non-beingness, the
Absolute, and the void or the nothingness; thereafter, the relative existence
happens spontaneously for the remainder of the manifestation of consciousness.]
So that is the take on the Direct Path from several of the non-duality guides credited above. Others aspects of the method will be offered tomorrow, including the fact that Maharaj abandoned the use of the Direct Path Method and all of the above and focused on un-teaching and un-learning.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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Links for ordering are below with
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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:
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(b) Purchase the ebook you’d like to send.
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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.
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.
