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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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 (continued)
Yesterday’s post ended with this:
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.
In a culture where identification seldom moves beyond the “body level,” then
anyone not dedicated to the concepts of relative body continuity and eternal
body continuity is thought to be “insane.”
Interesting, is it not, that the ones who have called “floyd” “flawed” or “insane”
or “lost” or “beyond salvation” have usually been among the 97% on the planet
who are attached to dogma-based beliefs that generate attachment to the body
and attachment to such insane beliefs as revealed in recent polls:
the critics over the years are among the 90%+ who believe that angels (i.e.,
half-bird / half-human, invisible creatures) are floating about all around them
and are protecting them; 20% of them now claim that they've “heard God speak to
them”;
25% say they have witnessed miraculous healings (so I “need to pray and need to
ask people to pray for me”); 16% say they've received a miraculous healing so
they know it can work for me; and 8% percent say that they regularly pray in
tongues.
And those are just some of the nonsensical beliefs of those who have no clue at
all about total freedom, including total freedom from attachment to the plant
food body-cum-consciousness and attachment to desire-and-fear-generating
beliefs.
Again, the point is this: the non-realized masses believe that if you don't
have a life-wish, then you must have a death-wish. They do not understand what
nisarga living looks like. The deer neither wishes for life nor wishes for
death. It abides naturally, just witnessing whatever is happening.
One past winter, a deer was seen lying in the edge of some woods near this
house, dying. After using the mobile phone to call the main office in the
subdivision for them to contact one of the game wardens that work in the area
and then awaiting his arrival, I knelt down and rubbed the deer along its neck.
One of its huge eyes stared at me, but there was no reaction other than a
slight, jerking motion when its neck was first touched.
Yet that deer did not whimper, did not moan, did not make a sound. There might
have been some discomfort, what with a human so close, but there was most
assuredly no fear of death being revealed in that eye.
There was no “hope,” no “I sure hope I live.” Nor was there any “wish,” no “I
sure wish I could go ahead and die and end this pain.”
When the warden I called
completed his inspection and determined there was no treatment that was going
to extend the manifestation of consciousness in the deer, he came back from his
truck with a syringe.
Seeing the needle, there was no “change of heart” with the deer saying, “Wait!
Is there a chance I can make it for another year? How about one more month? How
about at least a week? Well can you give me just ten more seconds? Is there a
chance for that much at least? Can you at least wait that long?”
No, it all ended quietly without agenda, all being witnessed from a platform of
neutrality, with no “this” preferred over “that” which is inevitable.
That is what total freedom looks like, and the deer abided in a state of total freedom throughout the manifestation, and the consciousness in that deer's plant food body unmanifested with total freedom.
And the way it was for that deer, from “beginning” to “end,” is the same way it is for the realized Nisargan.
The
reason many do not want to be free is because they are suffering from the
mental illness called “The Goldilocks Syndrome”: they are willing to readily
give up what they think is “too this” or “too that” but unwilling to give up
what they think is “just right” - just perfect at any particular moment.
The insanity of that is this: the only constant in the relative existence is
change, so whatever the distorted seeing takes to be perfect now will change shortly.
The Laws of Thermodynamics are not suspended either by ignoring them or denying
them. What has come together will come apart, be it “you with the perfect mate,”
“the perfect relationship,” the “perfect locale,” “the perfect body” . . . whatever.
The soup that Goldilocks found to be too hot, if left alone patiently for a few
minutes, could have been “just right.” But that condition of just right-ness
would soon have given way to soup that was perceived to be too cold. Try to
function as a person and it will be revealed that any and all satisfaction is
fleeting.
To be totally free is to be free of trying to manipulate the environment or the
body - or other bodies - to one's own self-will and instead merely witnessing
whatever happens spontaneously.
The deer that finds the levels of noise that come from a nearby house on
occasion to be contrary to its nature does not approach the house and knock on
the door and ask the woman if she and her family have ever considered measuring
the family's “noise footprint on the environment.” The deer merely moves away
from that house when the noise is erupting.
Freedom is not the freedom to control others. Consider one of the former
dictionary definitions of freedom that was discussed and one new one as well:
“Freedom” is the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement;
or, having the ability to move without restraint.
For the deer to be free and therefore at peace, it need not have the “power” to
make others “do this” or “stop that.” It requires only freedom from confinement
and the ability to move away.
“But Floyd,” some have said, “I feel imprisoned in a relationship at home” or “I
feel imprisoned in my relationship at work, and circumstances have robbed me of
the freedom to move.”
The reply: “First, there are more ways than one to move; secondly, there are
changes that can happen which do allow for movement when it is considered
impossible; and, thirdly, nothing is robbing you except your personal fears and
desires.”
Once de-accumulation happened here, then far less work and income was required.
Speaking with a seeker in Australia last night during the standing “Saturday-night-here-Sunday-morning-there-Skype-conference,”
it was seen that the illusory need for more and more money can end when
de-accumulation begins.
The expense of accumulation only begins with the initial cost of whatever (or
whomever) you are determined to buy. The maintenance costs of accumulations
eventually exceed by far the initial expense.
Far less money is required when freedom from accumulation and maintenance
happens, and then freedom of movement from employment that is enslaving can
happen.
Yet the move need not always be literal. Last night, he spoke of a remote island
on which he wants to buy a cabin to use for his retirement someday. It was
asked, “How many years until retirement?”
The reply: “Twenty.” The response: “You
need not wait twenty years to 'move' to the place of perfect peace. It is
within seven steps of where you think you are right now.”
Yet few will ever understand the steps in the “journey” from identification
with the false “I” to abidance as the Absolute.
Few will come to understand that freedom and peace are right here, right now or that the only movement required is the movement / non-movement along a path / non-path (except for the direct path offered here).
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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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.
