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.)
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MISTAKES OFTEN MADE BY SEEKERS
MISTAKING “GOOD” ROLES AND POPULAR ROLES FOR ACTUAL IDENTITIES
There are two clusters of identities which are usually the last to be abandoned.
Each cluster has three roles in particular which the non-realized masses are often willing to fight for (and sometimes die for) in order to preserve them.
The first three which are clung to passionately are seen when a guide leads a protégé beyond the first and second step and the seeker reaches the third step.
It is at the third step - after most false identities have been rejected - that three of the believed-to-be-really-good-roles are cherished and embraced and hung on to.
Those are the roles of “The Super Religious One” and “The Spiritual Giant” and “The Super Seeker.” At the extreme, “The Spiritual Giant” is also often seen as the Infinite Self, the Supreme Self, the Ultimate Self, etc.
Those prevent the freedom and peace of the nothingness from being reached and enjoyed. As long as one believes in being something or some things dreamed up by persons, then the not-something and the not-anything and the neti-neti reality cannot be grasped.
Moreover, if those are not grasped, then there shall be no respite from being driven by the desires and / or the fears of false roles which have been being assumed or assigned. Persons will therefore continue to be driven by the agendas of something or by things which are not even real.
It would be like driving along a road which had been cut into the side of a mountain; seeing a mirage in the road ahead; and jerking the steering wheel to the right to avoid the mirage and then falling into the valley below in an inferno of flames and twisted metal.
Crazy? Maybe so, but that is the way billions of non-realized masses abide on a daily basis, maybe not sailing off a road but nevertheless following a path that is destructive as far as the relative existence is concerned.
So much for “good” roles.
Next, Maharaj said that realization is nothing more than being freed from the influence of all that is false, including all beliefs, all nonsense, and all of the learned ignorance which has been accumulated and stored in the always-fiction-filled mind - even after believing that they have reached a state of full realization.
At that point, they might set aside “The Super Religious One” and “The Spiritual Giant” and “The Super Seeker” identities and all of the nonsensical thoughts and words and action which those inspire. Then, they might well believe that they are “identity-free.”
Yet objective witnessing would reveal that - in more cases than not - persons begin playing the roles of either “The Child” or “The Parent” but seldom “The Adult” / “The Mature Adult.”
Transactional Analysis (TA) involves the study of those three roles and how they inspire interactions among humans. The child and parent roles are driven by personality identifications, the case with billions of persons on the planet.
Wikipedia offers some insights into TA:
Transactional Analysis (TA) is a psychoanalytic theory and method of therapy wherein social interactions (or “transactions”) are analyzed to determine the ego state of the communicator (whether parent-like, childlike, or adult-like) as a basis for understanding behavior.
In transactional analysis, the communicator is taught to alter the ego state as a way to solve emotional problems. The method deviates from Freudian psychoanalysis which focuses on increasing awareness of the contents of subconsciously held ideas. Eric Berne developed the concept and paradigm of transactional analysis in the late 1950s
As Berne set up his psychology, there are four life positions that a person can hold, and holding a particular psychological position has profound implications for how an individual operationalizes his or her life. The positions are stated as:
I'm OK and you are OK. This is the healthiest position about life and it means that I feel good about myself and that I feel good about others and their competence.
I'm OK and you are not OK. In this position I feel good about myself but I see others as damaged or less than me and this is usually not healthy.
I'm not OK and you are OK. In this position the person sees him/herself as the weak partner in relationships as the others in life are definitely better than the self. The person who holds this position will unconsciously accept abuse as OK.
I'm not OK and you are not OK. This is the worst position to be in as it means that I believe that I am in a terrible state and the rest of the world is as bad. Consequently, there is no hope for any ultimate supports.
The subconscious playing of the Parent and Child roles can impact relationships to the point that the relationships can be broken without any chance at reconciliation.
Peg Streep explained it this way:
What are the chances of adult child / parent reconciliation?
I turned to the work of Joshua Coleman, who is an expert in both estrangement and reconciliation for illumination. The following is drawn from his book, Rules of Estrangement; its intended audience is parents, by the way. (Coleman was once an estranged parent himself; he and I have been writing about the subject from opposite sides for over a decade, and I say that respectfully.)
One of the techniques Coleman uses to facilitate reconciliation is to write a letter or email to the estranged child, asking to speak to him or her.
He reports that roughly 60 percent of those he contacts write back and that 20 percent of those say that they aren’t interested, 20 percent write long, angry explanations and tell him to go away, and the remaining 60 percent agree to speak to him.
Let’s unwrap those numbers. So four out of every 10 adult children he contacts refuse from the get-go. Of the remaining six adult children, close to three tell him adios.
So, that leaves a bit more than three out of the original 10 who will even entertain a joint therapy therapy section with their parents and that hardly guarantees reconciliation.
Obstacles to reconciliation:
These observations are anecdotal, drawn from interviews and discussions for my book Daughter Detox and my forthcoming book, Verbal Abuse. It is not an all-inclusive list.
1. Estrangement is a long process. The chances are good that the adult child has spent at least a decade, and most usually more, trying various strategies to deal with the relationship and the history of failures - of not being able to set boundaries, change the nature of the dialogue, or stop parental verbal abuse - will likely persuade the adult child that reconciliation is out of reach and that any effort will just end up in re-establishing the painful status quo.
2. The parental insistence that respect means a lack of criticism. Parents with an authoritarian style aren’t likely to be open to a discussion of what they did right or wrong, especially if they hew to the notion that an adult child shows respect by accepting parental actions without question. That was certainly Joe’s experience, dealing with his father:
“It was his way or the highway and he didn’t brook any criticism, not ever. When I finally confronted him about how he bullied me and my brothers, I was in my thirties and a father myself and he went absolutely ballistic.
He threatened to cut me out of his will, expose me to the community. He even threatened to call my bosses. It was crazy. But he also bullied my little boys and that was just not tolerable.
So I pulled out of family gatherings and seeing him and my mother defended him. The only way back into the fold was to placate him and I wasn’t going to do that. Not for me, not for my kids.”
Parents high in control, or who are combative by nature, aren’t likely to be open to hearing an adult child’s assessment either; the idea of respect being earned by a parent is utterly foreign to them.
3. Parental commitment to their family narratives. Adult child/parent estrangement is a response to parental treatment and the sad reality is that most of these parents aren’t about to let go of the stories they tell about themselves as parents as well as those they tell about their children.
Dysfunctional families have specific narratives - when there’s a scapegoat, he or she is the one stopping the family from being perfect, for example - and parents are not usually willing to make room for a contrarian script.
Saying that your story is a product of your imagination (or that you are outright lying) isn’t very unusual.
4. The adult child’s need or demand for acknowledgment or apology. If there’s one universal stumbling block, it’s probably this one, and it usually comes down to one thing: the parent’s unwillingness to take responsibility for the consequences of his or her actions.
There are many reasons for this stance, including the beliefs that, “They did the best they could,” and that, “Everyone makes mistakes and no one is perfect.” The other reality is that however your parent treated you was backed up by both rationalization and denial;
phrases such as, “I had to be hard on you so you didn’t get a swelled head,” “I needed to toughen you up because the world’s a tough place,” “I yelled at you because you never listened when I didn’t,” all come to mind, echoes of the many stories I’ve heard.
Let it be said that billions of humans on earth are assuming or being assigned false identities. All of those false personalities generate the same kind of estrangement which the Parent and Child roles can produce.
The focus on the Parent and Child roles is the result of recognizing the fact that they are some of the most common roles that linger throughout an entire relative existence.
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
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"From the I to the Absolute (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality");
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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.
