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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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.
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I AM THAT vs. “This Is Who I Think I Am”
“We believe in so many things on hearsay. We believe in distant lands and people, in heavens and hells, in gods and goddesses, because we were told. Similarly, we were told about ourselves, our parents, name, position, duties and so on. We never cared to verify.”
---Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
13. Be childlike without being childish.
What this body is has nothing to do with what I Am; furthermore, at various stages along the “path” as it became clear that every belief about what-I-had-taken-myself-to-be was erroneous, certain “new and improved roles” were assumed.
The last two in that category were “The Religious Man” and “The Spiritual Man.” Eventually, those two assumed identities were seen to be as bogus and as troublesome and as much a source of perceived separation as any other roles played for the four prior decades.
Once those were discarded, suddenly it felt as if I were “something else” even as that “something else” was not taken to be an identity. Specifically, I reached a post-religious persona step and a post-spiritual persona step where I felt as if I were a child (without believing “I am a child”).
Here is the way Maharaj described the way he felt when that condition manifested on his “journey”:
Maharaj: I feel that I am an infant. I feel clearly that in spite of all the changes I am a child. My guru told me, “That child, which is you even now, is your real self (swarupa). Go back to that state of pure being, where the ‘I am’ is still in its purity before it got contaminated with ‘this I am’ or ‘that I am’.”
The child state allows the manifested consciousness to function in the manner of its true nature, the natural fashion in which all human bodies-cum-consciousness could function if unnatural concepts and supernatural concepts had not been taught.
The word “childish” refers to one that is adult-age but behaves in the immature fashion of an infant. Because the primary personality type generally forms by the age of six, and because few adults will ever be free of the influence of personality, then the masses for the most part are thinking, talking, and behaving as six-year-olds.
That is what entrapment in personality looks like, and that is why non-dual guides invite seekers to be free of the effects of personality.
To be childlike, by contrast, is to be in that state of purity which is characteristic of the manifested consciousness pre-programming, pre-domestication, pre-conditioning, pre-acculturation, and pre-contamination. It is the level of purity that marks the consciousness before it is blocked or “contaminated” with ignorance.
Before all of that contamination-via-taught-and-learned-ignorance is introduced, whatever happens with a child happens naturally and spontaneously. The child does not have to think about making arms grow or legs grow; does not have to think about plans for the future;
does not have to be concerned with traumatic effects in adulthood that are rooted in “memories”; does not have to deal with a nonsense-filled “mind” that produces destructive thoughts, destructive words, and destructive deeds. The child knows no time, so it has no regrets about “past” events and no concerns about anticipated “future” events.
Feed the child, prevent it from exposure to perversions, and assure it is dry; then it will typically feel happy and free. After discarding the last two “good personas” and returning to that childlike state, it was exactly those feelings of happiness and freedom that manifested with this speck called “Floyd.”
There was no more childish behavior, thinking someone should take care of me or acting out in illogical ways, but there was that level of freedom that comes with casting aside belief in any persona as an identity, being manifested, knowing the Am-ness is, and then just being happy and free.
Free as a result of being free of what? Among other things, the nonsense that the masses are burdened with, the beliefs they accept without question, the lies they believe about the greatness of their family and their country and their dogma.
Yet the typical pattern now is that the child ignorance state (a.k.a., the child-free-of-ignorance-state) ends as senseless beliefs and concepts are taught to the child, after which those children eventually reach adulthood and then, as “the masses,” are driven to behave childishly no matter what their age.
Maharaj offered a description of the end result of being taught so many falsehoods, all of which help bring to an end that child-free-of-ignorance state and contribute to the beginning of the adult-full-of-ignorance state:
Maharaj: We believe in so many things on hearsay. We believe in distant lands and people, in heavens and hells, in gods and goddesses, because we were told. Similarly, we were told about ourselves, our parents, name, position, duties and so on. We never cared to verify.
That is the key to freedom from believing in myths and superstitions and lies, is it not? Question. Verify (or not). Maharaj continued:
The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate [ingrained] beliefs. Of these, the idea that you are the body is the worst.
With the body comes the world, with the world - God, who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts - fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems - all to protect and support the child-man, frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making. Realise that what you are cannot be born nor die and with the fear gone all suffering ends.
To be childlike rather than childish, the adult must question all, must reject all of the content which “they” used to create and fill a “mind,” and must return to that childlike state which existed prior to programming, conditioning, domestication, contamination, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination.
Short of casting aside all ideas and concepts and beliefs, one will never realize fully and will therefore behave in a childish fashion, no matter what the chronological age.
Abiding in a childish fashion, lies will be taken as truth; irrationality will block out all reason and logic; and persons will try to live supernaturally (which will most assuredly guarantee that they will live unnaturally instead).
14. Unlearn. Unlearn all learned ignorance in order to return to the Child (free-of) Ignorance state.
Understand that “the ignorant child-principle” merely refers to beingness. Understand the pre-contamination nature of the child consciousness - of the pre-programming and pre-conditioning Am-ness - and then transcend that.
Yes, the “path” is in the reverse order of the way that the movement from the manifestation to identification with the body happened.
In some rare cases, if the entire “path” is traveled and the “journey” all of the way back takes place, then some few seekers will also find not only that which was prior to consciousness but also that which was prior to the Absolute.
Long before you became aware of being during the early period of childhood, so many things happened. Have you found all of them? Find all of those things if you would understand the Functioning of the Totality.
The degree of light - the degree of total awareness that can illuminate all - varies from one seeker to the next. What is the key?
The key is this: if all concepts disappear and if all personality disappears, then the light emitted from the burning away of beliefs and personas will be so bright that you will be able to see all that had been obscured by darkness and you will understand All that is beyond both knowingness and not-knowingness.
Just as Krishna said that you are beyond both the beingness and the non-beingness (because both are expressions of body consciousness), so too are you beyond both the knowingness and the not-knowingness (because both of those are also expressions of the limited body consciousness as well).
That includes the child-knowingness stage and (on the “journey” back) that point which can be pointed to with such terms as “The Child Ignorance Stage” or “The Child (Without Ignorance Anymore) Stage” or “The Child No-Knowingness Stage.”
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");
"Consciousness / Awareness: The Nature of Reality Beyond SELF-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding As the Absolute)";
"From the Absolute to the Nothingness";
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“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”
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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.
