Advaita Vedanta: IS IT POSSIBLE THAT YOU MIGHT BE AFRAID OF FREEDOM AND TOTAL INDEPENDENCE?

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.

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT YOU MIGHT BE AFRAID OF FREEDOM AND TOTAL INDEPENDENCE?

“ . . . You are afraid of freedom!”
---Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Yesterday’s post ended with this:

Yet, as always, Maharaj brought the argument “back home”: “From the moment you were conceived you started a war with your environment.”

Those “local” wars are the ones that have the greatest impact on the non-realized masses and are the ones that persons can be free of if they complete, in their exact order, the steps to full realization.

Tomorrow we’ll consider the headlines that apply to those “local” or “personal” wars.

“LOCAL” / “PERSONAL” NEWS HEADLINES:

“Woman stays with abusive male 'for the children'.”

“Employees cringe as sociopathic boss approaches.”

“Priest re-located to five different parishes as church officials covered up his sex crimes for twenty years - hundreds of children molested as their parents looked the other way and continued to place money in church's collection basket. Thousands of church members remain in denial, support the priest and blame local authorities.”

“Link discovered between employment and violence in the home: wives of soldiers and policemen are more likely to be beaten by their spouses than are the wives of husbands in any other profession, but most of those wives remain loyal and silent.”

“Suicides on the increase among those losing their job and their homes during this extended recession.”

“Postal worker who lost job returns to job site, kills postmaster and wounds five others” and “Fired employee returns to workplace, kills store manager and wounds five fellow employees.”

“Driver cuts off another car on the freeway, shot by offended man in the car that had to stop abruptly.”

Again, Maharaj: “From the moment you were conceived you started a war with your environment.”

Consider the personas involved in those “wars”: “The Fearful One”; “The One Who Will Tolerate Anything for a Certain Lifestyle”; “The Employee”; “The Super Catholic Who Will Blindly Support Priests While Ignoring Their Sexual Child Abuse”; “The Homeowner”; and “The Egomaniac Who Better Be Shown Proper Respect.”

Maharaj noted that persons who think they are in the world will of course be trapped in the nonsense and ignorance and fighting that are associated with the “world” and the non-realized.

He said: “A man who moves with the earth will necessarily experience days and nights. He who stays with the sun will know no darkness.”

He spoke of the non-realized as “complex beings, at war within and without.” But again came a statement from him that supports the thesis of this discussion, namely, that most are afraid of total freedom and really are not interested in it at all because it would require the abandonment of all false identities, of all ego-states, and all egotism.

He said: “Were you really at war with your ego, you would have put many more questions. You are short of questions because you are not really interested. At present you are moved by the pleasure-pain principle which is the ego.

“You are going along with the ego, you are not fighting it. You are not even aware how totally you are swayed by personal considerations. A man should always revolt against himself, for the ego, like a crooked mirror, narrows down and distorts. It is the worst of all the tyrants, it dominates you absolutely.”

So the answer? Consider:

Questioner: “I find that the various aspects of myself are at war between themselves and there is no peace in me. Where are freedom and courage, wisdom and compassion? My actions merely increase the chasm in which I exist.”

Maharaj: “It is all so, because you take yourself to be somebody, or something.”

Those in the fighting-and-war-prone cultures that have historically been among the warrior societies (EX.: Germany, the U.K., the U.S.) and those that are newcomers to the ranks of the fighting cultures have an especial challenge, having been programmed and conditioned so that they now normalize conflict.

Yet even persons in those societies have available a process that can move them beyond the effects of such programming so that they can be free and independent and then be truly at peace. The questions are, “Are you really interested in total peace?” and “Are you really interested in total freedom?”

DEFINING FREEDOM –

CONVENTIONAL SOURCES

continued

l. “freedom” is the absence of ceremony and the ability to live naturally.

The questions for consideration today are,

A.”Are you interested enough in freedom, in total freedom, to abandon all of the myth-based and ignorance-based ceremonies in your culture that preempt realization?”

and

B. “Have you ever considered that ceremonies are one of the key tools that cultures use for programming and conditioning persons and for reinforcing their belief in superstitions, myths, and lies, thereby blocking any opportunity to see clearly and to see truth?”

For millions of years, humans lived naturally, without ceremony. A few thousand years ago, language allowed concepts to arise and to be taught and allowed for ceremonies to begin.

Once ceremonies began, persons began living unnaturally and began trying to live supernaturally (that is, religiously or spiritually) in an effort to gain some things and to avoid some things.

Humans for millennia had migrated, following the food (that is, following the migrating herds and hunting animals for food) or visiting places on a seasonal basis (to search for certain edible plants that were ripe and ready to eat at different times of the year in different locations).

Once some humans stopped migrating because they had developed some basic agricultural skills, one of the earliest things they wanted was rain for crops, and they dreamed up a ceremony that they thought would guarantee that their crops would receive the needed water. That ceremony led to the ceremonies that dominate all of the religions of Abraham to this day.

While one advantage of agriculture was that people were no longer forced into constant travel, one disadvantage was that they became slaves to varying weather patterns. Simultaneously with language development came the tool that would be used to spread ignorance and insanity on a global basis as persons became slaves to ceremony.

To be continued.

Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

The NEWEST OFFER

Watch an updated seven-hour streaming video of a retreat with Floyd Henderson which can be viewed by anyone with internet access. (In this video, all seven of the steps on "the path" as taught by Maharaj are explained and discussed.

If interested, click the button below to pay the fee via PayPal. You will then receive an email which includes the link for you to view the private, unlisted video via an arrangement we have made with YouTube, Inc. You do not have to have a YouTube account to watch this privately streamed video.

(If you do not receive the link promptly, your computer or email provider may have high filter settings. Check your spam and trash folders because some providers automatically transfer emails containing links to those folders.)

To access the seven-hour streaming video of a retreat and begin watching right away, click this "Buy Now" button:

[NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the postsin this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]

In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,300 posts for any topics of interest to you.

PAPERBACK VERSIONS OF SOME OF HENDERSON'S NON-DUALITY BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE.

If you prefer PAPERBACK copies

of some of Henderson’s non-duality books,

10 of his books are available in PRINT FORM
(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."

Order a PAPERBACK copy of The Advanced Seekers' Series&
from BARNES AND NOBLE by clicking here
or (sometimes less efficiently nowadays in terms of paperback delivery)

from AMAZON by clicking here.

Also for NON-DUALITY AUDIENCES

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 BARNES AND NOBLE by clicking here

or (sometimes less efficiently nowadays in terms of paperback delivery)
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:

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

the direct link to the VIDEO VERSION

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

18 MARCH 2018

You can click on the picture link which has now been added for video "Number Ten" in the upper right-hand column on this page.

If preferred, here's the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION.

You may click

here

to visit Floyd's bookstore.