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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DANCING LIGHTLY
“And
heavy is the tread of the living, but the dead returning lightly dance.”
(Edward Thomas)
LIGHTNESS AND LAUGHTER
Yesterday’s post ended with this:
In the movie “Zorba the Greek,” dancing lightly is featured and provides another example of the central message in this series. More on that tomorrow.
In that movie, the lead character Alexis Zorba is what some would call “a non-attached loner,” described in the novel on which the movie was based as “a living heart, a large voracious mouth, a great brute soul, not yet severed from mother earth” (a.k.a., nisarga or “natural”).
Zorba, with his joyous, spontaneous manner and self-abandoned happiness that finds expression through his dancing (even sans “Partner”), provides a sharp contrast to his rigid, uptight boss who knows no joy.
Exposed to Zorba’s zest, elements of the boss’s rigidity begin to fade even as “losses” happen. By the end, the boss’s severity collapses entirely after extended exposure to Zorba’s joyous nature. He finally asks Zorba, “Teach me to dance, will you?”
In the final scene, sometimes Zorba dances with a “partner” and sometimes he dances without. In the case with the “ex-husband” above, his “mind” cannot consider such a possibility as continuing to enjoy the dance even without a partner.
Either way with Zorba, the joy is there. With a “partner” or without, happiness happens. In the case of that speck called “zorba” - ”not yet severed from” the natural - Wisdom Is, Joy Is, Happiness Is, Love Is.
The one assuming the role of “The Ex-Husband” was invited to the dance via these teachings. It is I - the Pure Consciousness - that extends the invitation to the dance.
He was told, “You danced with what you took to be a ‘partner.’ Now, during this period when you mistakenly believe that you are ‘alone,’ you are invited to continue the dance. Merely because the one you took to be ‘Your Partner’ has chosen to dance with you no more is no reason at all for you to stop the dance. So dance.
“If you would truly realize, you will come to understand that I can be your Zorba. I can teach you to dance even without ‘The Partner,’ and by enjoying the dance even without a ‘partner,’ you will find that you have never been ‘alone,’ that you cannot be ‘alone,’ that you shall never be ‘separated’ or ‘alone,’ and that the dance can go on . . . with joy.
“The concepts of ‘with’ or ‘without’ be damned. You can find that happiness and peace can manifest NOW and that freedom and joy can manifest whether dancing with a ‘partner’ or not. Just come to the dance.
“Then, you can know that you are Zorba and that even without a relative ‘partner,’ the dance can go on … with spontaneity, with joy, with happiness, with peace, with freedom. Dance, won’t you?”
LEAVING
THE DANCE
So
someone might see me ask a person to leave satsang or an non-duality seminar,
as happened a few years ago. Less than five minutes into what was to be a
fifty-five-minute-one-on-one session, the session was ended because the person
sitting opposite me went into an anger-based, resentful rant about two
co-workers.
As he reported the details regarding the ways that other persons had offended
him, the volume of the voice and the physical twisting and shifting increased
as the original emotional reaction was re-sent through the body and mind of the
man via this re-telling of his tales.
That re-sending of the original effects of the supposed offenses drove him to
re-experience and even magnify the original reactions via the re-telling.
Consider the way that re-sending supported and renewed “resentment” by
understanding the roots of the words involved:
the French sentire = “to feel” and the French resentir = “to feel strongly” and
/ or “to feel bitter or indignant about.” Resentment was supported and
amplified by re-sending the effects throughout a body-mind-personality triad.
The man was interrupted and was informed that the session would have to end. It
was explained that, as in the case of oil and water, this speck abides as THAT,
so one abiding in his fashion (with such intensity and anger and histrionics
that were being used to reinforce his sense of separation and better-than-ness)
cannot be engaged in the dance of unicity.
Recall the earlier pointer: Maharaj taught that “what is Real can never combine with the unreal.”
FIXATING IN THE LIGHTNESS
“Dance is lightness in motion, but The Light must precede the lightness.”
(Floyd Henderson)
The realized perceive what is called “the world” - as well as all happenings that happen during the relative existence - by way of the luminosity of pure understanding; the non-realized see only what is reflected in a dim and flickering light.
Because the non-realized must, regretfully, suffer the slings and arrows of the ever-changing, unstable existence which they take to be the real, they can become attached to the relief and exhilaration of seeing “The Long-Awaited White Knight.”
They watch him arriving in his shining armor, perched high on his white horse and promising to put to an end the loneliness of being single or promising to bring to an end the vicissitudes of single parenting;
Yet
when the visor is reaised, they see that it is actually “The Dark Knight of
Unimaginable Suffering” underneath, thus forcing “The Rescued One” to
experience the misery brought on as a result of finding out that another
deception has been played out in consciousness;
or they can become attached to the happiness of paying off a car note, only to
see the mortgage note increase on the house and then attach to that
disappointment;
or
they can become attached to the happiness of seeing a partner’s medical
condition cured, only to learn that their child has an incurable disease and
attaching to that misery;
or they can attach to the joy of a couple working for decades and finally
retiring but then shortly afterwards discovering that greedy and extremely
wealthy people have stolen 50% of the assets in their retirement fund, forcing
both to begin seeking employment again.
Tossed into that mix are the yearly or monthly (and, eventually, daily)
fluctuations of relationships, shifting from perfect at one point to just okay
at another to finally being perceived as a total disaster.
Maharaj: “The mind that projects the world colours it its own way. When you
meet a man, he is a stranger. When you marry him, he becomes your own self.
When you quarrel, he becomes your enemy. It is your mind’s attitude that
determines what he is to you.”
Of
course his point was that the scenario above has nothing to do with Real Love.
He said:
Maharaj: “Love is not selective; desire is selective. In Love, there are no
strangers.”
It is those fluctuations of the “mind” which shift one’s view of another from “perfect”
to “just okay” to “disastrous,” the type of fluctuations that were adumbrated
in the sequence that Maharaj used to describe the typical movement in
relationships:
He noted the all-too-frequent movement of going from stranger to acquaintance to friend to lover to fiancé / fiancée to spouse to wonderful spouse to not so wonderful spouse to horrible spouse to enemy to mortal enemy.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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");
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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.
