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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I AM THAT vs. “This Is Who I Think I Am”
Yesterday’s post ended with this:
It is in the nature of all manifestation that the good and the bad follow each other and in equal measure. The true refuge is only in the unmanifested.”
That last sentence should make clear that the three pointers offered so far in this series are not about “running away” but are very much about being in touch with Reality, here and now.
Review the three pointers so far in that context:
If in touch with Reality, (1) “pure witnessing” can happen during the relative existence; it can be understood that (2) there is no experience or experiencer; and it can be understood that (3) the universal respite for all relative problems is “deep sleep” (i.e., “wakeful sleep” or “alert sleep”).
Or see it the way Maharaj put it, that “the true refuge” is abiding as “the unmanifested” rather than the manifested. Only the Realized will grasp the actual difference in “taking refuge via abidance as the original, natural, unmanifested state” and “running away or trying to escape.”
One visitor said of these pointers that they were the topic of a conversation [dealing with a friend’s] “dilemma” that somehow this understanding means “not caring” and not working for change in the world. [Also] odd that people think this understanding is “a choice” that can be made - rather than seeing this is already the reality - simply hidden from view by the filters of the distorted mind.
The reply was: Exactly. The non-dual message is a message of freedom - a message about being totally free. Why would a “realized non-dualist” not care about the blood being shed at this very moment in Iran by people who would enjoy the most basic freedoms that must be in place before the levels of freedom addressed on this site can even be considered?
When 150+ people were killed by a religious regime that is intent on preserving its power in “this world” while claiming its authority has been bestowed by “a Power in another world,” then of course caring happens among the realized.
And when magical, supernatural thinking is practiced by those assuming authority, of course tyranny and suppression and brutality and murder shall mark and mar the relative existence of those living under the influence and rule of such megalomaniacs with their distorted, myth-based, and division-inspiring religious beliefs.
And of course everything natural about the relative existence of any nation so ruled will be banned and only the most unnatural and supernatural mode of living will be tolerated by “The Rulers.”
Once more, as has been the case for thousands of years, those who talk of love from their pulpits or high places will demonstrate - if challenged - that their talk is empty rhetoric. Those “leaders” live in darkness even while claiming to have been bathed in the light. They live in darkness even at high noon.
So the same types of aggressive behaviors that were catalogued in the early postings in this series are being witnessed again as Iranians that would walk the streets in peace and freedom instead walk the streets in their own blood and that of their fellows.
On one of my trips to the Normandy beaches in France, the following inscription was read on a memorial in a garden in a town nearby:
“From the heart of our land flows the blood of our youth, given to you in the name of freedom.” 2009? No. The 1940’s. So again, the words of Maharaj ring out:
“No doubt, striving for the improvement of the world is a most praiseworthy occupation [if] done selflessly . . . , but soon man will realise that he pursues a mirage.” That statement will not stop some from striving; thus it is . . . thus is shall be. Strive away, pursue away, if so driven.
[But how often is such striving really of the altruistic variety? Most who assume the role of “The Helper” are really seeking something in return; furthermore, how many persons that “The Helpers” claim to have “helped” were really “helped” at all?]
But now, once again, there is land that flows with blood, not on Omaha Beach but on the streets of Tehran - the blood-letting ordered by the highest religious official in that theocratic nation.
Yet somewhere, every day on this planet, the masses in their darkness are engaged in blood-letting. Is it their understanding that “I AM THAT . . . not this”?
Hardly. Instead, there is a belief rather than the understanding, the belief being, “I am supreme.” Trouble enough any time that the “I Am” is followed by any noun or adjective. Far more when the “I AM” is followed by “supreme.”
Yet who among the non-realized do not hold that belief? Once an ego-state is assumed, then egotism will upgrade a false identity to the highest possible level and “This is who I think I am” becomes the false but self-assured belief that will drive all thoughts and words and deeds.
When such a belief prevails, then barbaric nonsense will continue across the globe. It will happen for as long as persons walk in the darkness of their ideologies and dogma and concepts and ideas and beliefs and in the darkness of their “mind” / personality foolishness.
With around 8 billion non-realized persons on the planet being fully attached to their dogma and ideologies, what chance for peace?
Thus, chaos and fighting will happen among those who consider themselves to be in “personal relationships”; among those within nations divided by sects or denominations or political parties or ideologies or separatist wings . . . left or right;
among nations divided by different economic systems or different forms of government; among all with a false notion that “This is who I think I am, and my exalted who-ness leaves me ‘apart from,’ ‘different from,’ and ‘better than,’ so stop talking your gibberish about Oneness.” Be not surprised when those assuming supreme power abuse it supremely.
In their quest to accumulate more and more, to gain and to hold relative power, and to be able to control the masses, the greedy and the ignorant (embroiled as they are in their self-seeking and power-seeking and “Self”-seeking) will guarantee that they shall remain in darkness and shall never know truth; therefore, they are likely destined to be abusive fools forever and to behave accordingly.
Why is there such chaos that flows from those who claim that they have been shown the truth by a higher power, that they know more than all others, and that all should therefore listen to them and follow their dictates with unquestioning faith? Dennis Waite explains it this way:
“Truth is not about acquiring more and more knowledge until some sort of critical mass is attained and the ‘Self’ is realised - quite the opposite. It is about discarding more and more of the material and immaterial aspects to which the ego has become attached until nothing more is left.”
Such is the conduct of those who claim to know so much but who actually understand nothing; furthermore, the misunderstanding by the friend referenced in the e-mail above is one of the most common confusions among those who might believe that they are familiar with all of the implications of these teaching but are not.
One visitor to Maharaj’s loft revealed the type of erroneous conclusions that can be drawn in regards to these pointers when he said:
“The person immersed in the world has a life of many flavours. He weeps, he laughs, loves and hates, desires and fears, suffers and rejoices. The desireless and fearless jnani, what life has he? Is he not left high and dry in his aloofness?
Maharaj replied: “His state is not so desolate. It tastes of the pure, uncaused, undiluted bliss. He is happy and fully aware that happiness is his very nature and that he need not do anything, nor strive for anything to secure it. You imagine that without cause there can be no happiness. To me dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery.”
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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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.
