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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I AM THAT vs. “This Is Who I Think I Am”
(Continued)
The responses to no-identity pointers over the years can generally be grouped into three categories: (1) those from seekers that are willing to consider these pointers on the nothingness but are confused;
(2) those who doubt the pointers but are willing to hear more and then consider; and (3) those who are sure they have found a “real identity” and consider anything suggested here to the contrary to be “rubbish.”
So it is. For those in the last group, the consideration is this: the only thing standing in the way of abandoning your concepts and beliefs and identity (or identities?) is ego. It is ego that will inspire you to desire to be “something” and that will block you from understanding that nothing is as it appears to be.
It is ego that will suggest you have abandoned all beliefs save one, and that will inspire you to assume a “new and noble and final” belief about some identity.
Yet everything and anything you can claim to be, you claim with words and terms that are man-made and that are being used to state a truth when truth cannot be stated.
It is ego that will inspire you to “go to the mat” and to be willing to fight for the notion that “This is what I think I am” or “This is what I know I am.”
Just as you found along the way that you are nothing that you have ever thought you were in the “pre-journey” days or in the early stages along “the path,” so the fact remains now that you still are not what you think you are.
As for those in the first two groups, another approach will be attempted that might bring clarity. Here, Lake Conroe is said to be a body of water with quiet coves;
the lake is said to be fed by rain and streams and creeks and brooks and rivers and other tributaries. Nearby, there are said to be pools and ponds and a waterfall at the entrance to the neighborhood.
Some days it is said that clouds sail overhead, and some days it is reported that vapors are rising from the lake and elevating the humidity.
A short drive away, it is said that there is a bay that affords boaters the chance to access the gulf which can also be reached by car or by boats via a canal. The gulf, it is said, can be crossed in order to access the oceans.
In the winter, it is said that there might be a few days of snow every third year or so, along with occasional icing, but fog and rain and mist are said to be more common. At least, all of that is the way it is perceived and reported.
However, just as persons are not in the world but the world is in them, so too is all of the above a figment of the “minds” that resulted from programming and conditioning. In fact, there is neither a lake nor coves; there are no streams, creeks, brooks, rivers, or tributaries.
There are no pools or ponds or waterfalls or clouds or vapors or humidity. There are neither bays nor gulfs nor canals nor oceans; furthermore, there is no snow, no ice, no fog, no rain, and no mist.
Moreover there is no you (and there is or You). In the case of those “forms of water,” there is really only H20. Everything else is an illusion, a perceived form that humans have decided to label, creating a false sense of differentiation when none exists and completely ignoring the substance involved.
In the case of you (and the dreamed up “You”), the same has happened. You have been told that you are many things, only to learn - if you have traveled along the “path” for any distance at all - that all of those who told you a myriad of things that you were, or are, have been in error.
Consider this as well: Irrigation systems here run daily because temperatures of 106-degrees bring about a high rate of evaporation that is leaving non-irrigated lawns scorched, plants dying, and both water and electrical bills soaring.
You will understand, therefore, why some people leave their beds at night when the sounds of thunder come closer and closer and “water / rain” begins to fall from above. It can be seen in the streetlights, but its source is beyond the lights and shrouded in darkness.
With the accompanying drop in temperature, the usual routine here - two cups of breve either before or while blogging - are consumed on the deck in back of the house while enjoying the brief period of coolness. The morning newscast refers to “thunderstorms,” “much-needed rain,” “area flooding,” etc. But you know it was only H20, and you know that even that is a man-made label.
In addition, the accompanying duality manifests as well with persons registering their self-ish concerns about uncontrollable events. Those installing irrigation systems would prefer that the drought continue unabated.
Jose sometimes calls and reports with disappointment that his crew will not be mowing the lawn here (and would not be able to collect the pay he desired). So some are thinking that the rain was a “good” thing while some are sure that the rain was a “bad” thing.
Such is the deception of the relative existence, thinking H20 can be many different things merely because form rather than substance is being perceived / misperceived.
Such is the vacillation of the relative existence, persons looking at the same happening or thing and some welcoming the happening and others dreading the happening.
But what does that have to do with the nothingness? First, nothing is what it is said to be. Nothing that H20 is said to be (other than H20) is really the truth.
As with the H20 that fell recently, it was not what it appeared to be, or what people thought it was. Whatever form was assumed will not last.
After a summer rainfall, the sun “rises” and so do “vapors.” The H20 will not remain on the lawn since the prediction is that record high temperatures will return.
Do you see that nothing is as it appears to be to persons? Are you seeing that nothing said by humans to be “something” is actually that at all?
Do you see that what comes from the darkness during nighttime storms will likewise return and will not maintain the form that it took temporarily?
Many who oppose the pointers regarding the nothingness will claim, “I understand that the substance of water has nothing to do with the various human-named forms.
As with my full understanding of water, so too is my full understanding of what is authentic and what is not. I am not the form. That which I truly am is the substance beyond the form.”
Fine, but what of the billions of years on the planet before water appeared? If it is true that there was a pre-water “time” when neither form was perceived nor when there was even the substance, why cannot the masses understand the pre-manifestation Reality and the pre-”Manifestation” Reality as well?
Trace and chase identity as far back as you like, but there will be no manifestation of total freedom and total peace unless all identity is abandoned.
Debate “The Identity” right alongside the debate of the number of angels that can appear on the tip of a needle, but the unshakable peace comes only when identity goes.
Yes, the potentiality was there for water to begin appearing on the planet some 4.6 million years ago, but what of the 10 million years before that when water was a potentiality but was not manifested at all?
Do you see the futility of trying to track and label everything, including yourself / Yourself? The weather reporters would have reported that, “It’s a cloud, no its rain, no it’s a flood” even as it continues now with, “No, it’s a vapor, no its clouds again,” ad infinitum.
Even as all of the misnomers are tossed about in regards to the form taken, understand that that was a “time” when, not only were there no forms of H20 but there was also a “time” when no substance existed, when there was no H20 at all.
Before there was any substance-before-form to be perceived, there was no substance with form, nothing perceived, and - more to the point - no misperceiving.
To understand that there was a void prior to “something” is to be able to touch the void and to know (1) first, all that you are not; to know (2) next, what the authentic is (but only while manifested);
and to know thereafter once again (3) what you are not and to consider only the no-concept, no-identity, non-personal, non-dual Reality.
Then, you will understand the falsity of form, the substance of substance, and after that the pre-substance condition which existed prior to the formation of this universe.
Gather up all sorts of understandings about what was prior to that, but understand that no identity will generate peace. Even “the Infinite Self, the Spiritual Giant or the Supreme One” will generate a sense of separation from others, claims about identifying with the oneness notwithstanding.
For now Real Love can be known if the present Oneness is understood, but wisdom is understanding not only the Oneness but also the none-ness as well.
Again, Maharaj: “Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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.
