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
CULTURES AND INSTITUTIONS PROGRAM PERSONS TO ACCEPT A LACK OF TRUE FREEDOM
One
person said some time back, “If you would take a few minutes to Google 'health
benefits + meditation,' you might learn something.” And the reply was:
“If you might unlearn everything, you might fixate in a constant state of
samadhi without all of that 'going into samadhi' and 'coming out of samadhi'
that you presently experience.
“Then,
whatever 'benefits' you speak of would come not like a light, occasional
sprinkling but would manifest more like a flood that would wash away once and
for all whatever it is that you are seeking to be free of via your fifteen or
thirty or sixty-minute sessions.
“But you do not want to be totally free. You want to engage in your
religious-spiritual exercises, and many also want to be seen doing that.
“The
draw of corporate worship or corporate meetings is that person can publicly
display what they take to be their advanced level of spirituality.”
Meanwhile, they open their services or meetings by singing or chanting words in
unison, and they close their services or meetings by singing or chanting in
unison. They rise in unison, sit in unison, bow their heads in unison, or raise
their heads in unison;
among some whose religion is as far right as their politics, they pray in
unison, then sway in unison, then swoon in unison, then fall about in unison,
and they even roll around on the floor in unison.
And all the while, they think their activities and exercises are making them
free, when their movements are actually limited to the narrow confines of
group-think, group-talk, and group-behavior.
They will come here to explain how free they are (“free as a bird - flying,
diving, turning, swooping as I please”), but they are totally blind to the fact
that their flying, diving, turning and swooping is all orchestrated by the
movements of the surrounding masses.
Thinking they are “individualized and unique,” they are totally unaware of the
fact that they are a part of a synchronized mass, moving up when the masses
move up and moving down when the masses move down, just as some birds do as
they move across the sky in a manner that parallels the movement of all others
among the flock.
Certainly, a bird in such a mass of birds moving in unison - if it could think
and believe - would think and believe that it is free, but the fact is that it
is trapped in the prison of the masses. And in that state, every action will be
determined by the shadowy masses - never by the light, never by the pure
consciousness that allows the realized to be free of the dark influence of the
light-less masses.
Remain attached to the domesticated and acculturated masses and to the way that
they think and talk and behave and you will have no chance at all of finding
the road not taken by the masses . . . the one path that leads to truth.
And remain a part of the masses that will never find the truth and you will -
as is the case with the masses - never be totally free.
Some
might consider the upcoming pointers to be a deviation from the subject matter
of this book, but by its end, you will see that it is not. To be addressed are
certain “relative happenings” in order to offer “an Absolute message”:
the many inquiries that have come in since the body here began experiencing
some abnormal functioning of the heart have been appreciated, but know that the
talk about that happening deals with the plant food body only and has nothing
to do with me.
Just as the conscious-energy which can manifest for a time in a plant can allow
for talk about a plant-cum-consciousness, so too it must be remembered that
this heart issue is happening in a body-cum-consciousness but that the
consciousness involved is not attached at all to the body, either literally or
figuratively.
In fact, the conscious-energy is forever coming and going too. Plant food is
eaten throughout the waking hours to ensure that a “fresh supply” of that
energy is cycling as plant food / elements transform into cells.
Next, understand that the notion that some teacher is “different” and able to “do
this” or “do that” for you must be transcended if one would understand the
functioning of the totality. Maharaj invited seekers to determine everything
that they are not willing to let go of. The invitation is still valid.
First and foremost, are you willing to let go of any attachment to the body
(knowing that does not require that you become “suicidal”)?
Reaching
that state of non-attachment to the body is where the four-step “path” begins,
specifically, with a transcending of identification with the limited and
personal and individual plant food body and then with any attachment to a clump
of elements at all.
It is that transcendence that makes the realized appear to be “different,” not
reacting years ago when a doctor spoke of “colon cancer” and not reacting last
week when there was talk of “only 6 to 24 months to live unless immediate
action is taken.”
[Note: The absence of “reaction” does not eliminate the possibility of action,
but whatever actions that might happen among the realized regarding these body
issues will be based in logic and reason and will not be driven by the desires
of persons with financial and god-complex-based agendas who would trigger a
state of emotional intoxication in order to control people.]
Again, does non-attachment to the body mean that the Realized are irrational,
illogical, suicidal? Hardly. Just as the ego-state of “The Spouse” (which
egotism soon upgrades to the status of “The Super Spouse”) can be transcended
without divorce, so too can body identification be abandoned without destroying
the body.
Now, back to that notion of a teacher being “different” and the comment by one
visitor who suggested that he was being offered something from this speck that
is “different” and that he “wants” to continue to receive it. That is an idea,
and all ideas miss the mark. Consider that speck of pure consciousness called “Maharaj”:
Maharaj was not “different.” The only thing that placed that speck of
consciousness among the few thousand on the planet that are Fully Realized at
any given time (and that therefore made Maharaj “look different”) was not the
fact that “he” was different.
It was not the fact that Maharaj “looked different” that inspired some to
listen when that speck spoke but the fact that the speck of energy called “Maharaj”
looked differently.
Meaning? Meaning that the unblocked, unobstructed speck of consciousness
witnessed in a manner that was different from the way that all of the other
blocked, obscured specks of consciousness witnessed.
That clear seeing allowed total freedom to manifest, and it was that total
freedom - including being totally free of any attachment to the body - that
allowed the speck called “Maharaj” to take mahasamadhi with no moaning or
whimpering at all. Yet that does not imply that that totally free speck - or
any other speck that is “realized - is suicidal or pro-death.
The pointer was offered earlier that what Jean Dunn called Maharaj's
awe-inspiring acceptance of mahasamadhi cannot happen if there is not total
freedom, that is, if total non-attachment to the personal has not happened . .
. if there is no longer any “tie.”
Understand, though, that non-attachment to the plant food body does not imply
the presence of a “death-wish.” The non-Realized assume that if there is not a
life-wish, then there must be a death-wish. Not true.
Realized, the speck is freed from all personality identification, and since it
is each persona that brings a specific desire and a specific fear, then the
no-persona condition is a condition that is free of any wish, including a
life-wish or a death-wish.
As among the naturally-abiding deer, all is merely witnessed without agenda and
without emotional intoxication. For those that have followed the teachings here
for awhile, you might recall a description of a fawn that was stillborn outside
the office window here. The buck and doe both displayed what was obviously some
“feelings,” but there was no emotional intoxication and they eventually moved
on without attachment.
That is the way all manifestings and un-manifestings play out among the realized:
all is witnessed from a platform of neutrality, and the platform is always some
distance away from whatever relative happenings are playing out. But in a
culture where “full-speed-ahead” is thought to be the only acceptable option, “neutral”
is seldom considered as an option at all.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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."
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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.
