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
DANCING LIGHTLY
“And
heavy is the tread of the living, but the dead returning lightly dance.”
(Edward Thomas)
“The
desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews.
Not to be born is the best for man.
The second best is a formal order.
The dance's pattern; dance while you can.
Dance, dance, for the figure is easy.
The tune is catching and will not stop.
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters.
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.”
W.H. Auden
WITNESSING
AND LIGHTNESS
Some claim, “It is my inner voice that is telling me about that person, that
teacher, etc.” Understand: when in the darkness of being separated from authenticity,
the inner voice being heard is not the inner guru but is the voice of one
personality after another.
Maharaj: “True awareness (samvid) is a state of pure witnessing without the
least attempt to do anything about the event witnessed. You watch all
unconcerned in the full light of clarity and understanding.”
The inner guru is drowned out and cannot be heard when the inner voices of
false selves are shouting instructions and directions that can guide you to the
edge of the cliff . . . and over.
Recently, when there was a witnessing of one walking along the edge of the
cliff, it might have appeared to an observer that “floyd has certainly lost his
harmony.”
Yet the “not-two harmony” was manifesting perfectly intact, allowing the relative issues that were confronting “another” to be discussed with pointers that were rooted not in the relative but in awareness instead. That fact allowed clarity and Love to speak; that alone facilitated “the return to balance and harmony”;
that
alone allowed “the heart of things to again be at peace.” What may have
appeared to be “floyd’s disharmony” was proved not to be that at all, for if
there had not been a harmony between the I AM THAT and the I AM, then when the
consciousness spoke, no “return to balance and harmony” would have followed.
Yet “floyd” has never pulled anyone from the brink. Only pointing has ever
happened: “Over there is solid ground; in the direction you are headed is a
cliff and relative suffering. Which way shall you go now?” Was the happening
surrounding that recent case all about the relative? Yes.
Were non-relative
pointers being offered that could be used to toss light onto those relative
issues? Yes. Does that mean that the one offering the facts surrounding those
relative events has surely been pulled into the disharmony of the one at the
cliff’s edge?
Of course not, appearances be damned. Does realization mean caring ends? Of
course not. Mistake not caring or sadness for disharmony. But if light is to be
cast, the teacher must walk into the disharmonious darkness where the light is
being called for.
Will the teacher physically grab the one walking toward the
edge of the cliff in darkness and try to force that one to turn? Also . . . of
course not.
Will the teacher continue to offer the light? To a point, yes. As long as the
prospect remains that one is at least willing to allow the guide to continue to
shine the light at the edge of the cliff, the guide will stay as long as
required.
If one turns her / his back on the guide and the light, then the guide can,
and shall, only witness what happens. Might the end results sometimes lead the guide
to feel caring and sadness? Yes. Is that an indicator of non-realization?
Hardly.
Maharaj: “Beyond the ‘I am’ there is the immensity of light and Love. We do not
see it because we look elsewhere; I can only point at the sky; seeing of the
star is your own work. Some take more time before they see the star, some take
less; it depends on the clarity of their vision and their earnestness in
search. These two must be their own - I can only encourage.”
So it is.
CONTINUOUS SEEKING PREVENTS LIGHTNESS
Who
that has experienced a number of years of existence on this planet has not come
to know the loss of lightness as periods of heaviness have descended upon them?
Who has not known the duality of shifting between states of happiness and
unhappiness.
While
most never verbalize exactly what they are feeling - many being “down” for so
long that down seems “normal” - who has not faced the sense of a heavy weight
upon the shoulders . . . on the “mind”?
Who
has not felt at times the grave or burdensome or tiresome or gloomy or dismal
or oppressive or melancholic or depressive darkness that can come to rob you of
any sense of peace and freedom and lightness?
There is a two-fold quest among the masses: one is the search for eternal
continuity; the other is the search for continuous happiness. The former is an
impossibility; the latter is an impossibility.
Happiness
will be forever like the tides - forever coming and going - for those who are
seeking happiness or anything else.
Seeking
is triggered by a sense of need or fear, so the very act of seeking is itself
evidence of a sense of lacking, and who with a sense of lacking - with an
overwhelming sense of unmet needs and desires and with a crushing sense of
deficiency - can be content?
[To detour to the relative for a moment: after working for decades in the field of
financial consultation, it has been made clear over the last several decades
that the sense of financial want is often self-imposed.
Time and again it has
been seen that the solution to financial needs can often be addressed if
financial sanity is restored and if people see that many problems can be solved
by spending less rather than by making more or engaging in acts of desperation
to attain more.]
If you are feeling robbed of the lightness and are feeling the heaviness
referenced above, “the world” is too much with you. Maharaj taught that you are
not in the world . . . that the world is in you. That is, “the world” is in
your “mind,” so that there are as many perceptions of what the world is like as
there are “minds”;
furthermore,
because persons are constantly “changing their minds” about what they think
they need or fear or like or dislike (search for the earlier discussions of “The
Goldilocks Syndrome”) their states of happiness and unhappiness are also in
constant flux.
And therein lies the source of heaviness and the peace-stealing sense of
discontinuity. The maxim “the only thing permanent in this world is change”
points to the fact that this consciousness - even if unblocked after the
removal of the debris of programming, acculturation, conditioning and
domestication - will still be ever in motion.
The motion-emotion connection has
already been made clear, so freedom and then peace can come only if this
consciousness and emotional-intoxication and feeling-intoxication are
transcended. Only if abiding as the original nature can any stability ever
happen consistently.
Recently, during an Advaita Skype session, a man admitted that everything in
his life that had seemed at a time to be so huge, so overwhelming, and so
important could be looked back on from the distance of days past or weeks past
or years past and was eventually seen to be so small, so underwhelming, so
insignificant.
That
is what should happen when things are viewed from the distance. The distance
from your original nature to on-going relative events is limitless. View all
from there. Viewed from the distance of your original nature, all in the
relative existence begins to appear to be so small; ultimately, it completely
disappears. Here, I do not see the things most see.
Maharaj: “I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you
stick to things and move along with them.”
Here, I only see what most see when invited into their darkness, when invited
to bring the light.
Maharaj: “You just do not look carefully enough. Look well, and see what I see.”
Questioner: “What do you see?”
Maharaj: “I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus
of your attention. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas. Bring [the authentic]
into focus, become aware of Your own existence. See how you function, watch the
motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around
yourself by inadvertence.”
If you are not enjoying the peace that can only come after being set free, then
you are in a self-imposed prison. Each bar of that dark prison is an idea or
belief or concept that has been accepted from your culture, the culture which
serves as your guard and would keep you imprisoned forever.
Here, the light is offered so that you can see what your actual prison is, so that you can remove the bars, so you can then walk free, and so that you can then dance lightly.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
