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, and financial budgeting.
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
(Continued)
First, the pointers offered so far which can facilitate a more peaceful, more Loving, and more harmonious movement through the relative existence will be reviewed:
1. Witness.
2. Be done with the notions of experiences and an experiencer.
3. Abide as the “awakened / alert sleep” state.
4. Be unflinchingly true to truth.
5. Abide as the original, natural, pre-universe state, identified only with the nothingness until even that identity falls away.
6. Seek the Void, the “Ultimate De-Accumulation,” The Nothingness.
7. Abandon all egotistical beliefs about supremacy.
8. Be concerned with the war which most impacts your relative existence - that being the war going on in your duality-filled mind.
9. If you yet take yourself (or YourSelf) to be something or someone, consider that you are ignoring one of the earliest invitations by the non-dual guides, namely, to be free of all concepts and ideas and beliefs.
10. Associate with “company” that does not reinforce beliefs about “separation” and duality (otherwise known as what Maharaj called “good company” and “noble friendship” and “holy company”). If that is not available, then keep only your own company instead.
11. Never compromise your integrity and your dedication to the understanding. To falter in impeccability - that is, to compromise in regards to zero tolerance of anything short of zero concepts - will leave you in as much chaos as those who have never heard these pointers and are trapped in duality 24-7.
12. Understand that a refusal by the realized to associate with certain persons or groups does not suggest that the realized do not still understand the Oneness.
13. Be childlike without being childish.
14. Unlearn all learned ignorance to return to the Child Ignorance state (meaning “the Child Free Of Ignorance state”).
In other words, care enough to verify. Only to try to verify what you have accepted as true will it be seen that nothing you have accepted as true can be verified.
If one instinctively understands the wisdom of taking the top off of a gallon jug which contains only a small amount of milk in the bottom, smells a pungent odor which makes clear that the remaining milk has soured, and then wisely tosses it in the garbage bin, then . . .
why not apply the same test to one's belief systems (understanding that those are not your beliefs to begin with. They are the beliefs of others who shared with you the beliefs which has been passed along to them that you accepted as true without verifying or checking or questioning.
The fact: there is no such thing as “your beliefs.” There is nothing more than “their beliefs” (which, also, are not really theirs, either). How to understand the way that nonsense is generational, passed down like a tattered piece of clothing that has been used for years by the members of a family living in poverty?
If you would understand how the manifested consciousness - pure, uncontaminated, and unblocked at the time of manifestation - became impure, contaminated, and blocked, then review the typical scenario:
When a child appears, it has no notion at all about an identity. Birds and animals and fish that live naturally will continue in that identity-less fashion throughout the entire manifestation and will, therefore, face none of the misery and chaos that identities / ego-states generate.
Similarly with the child, the early stage usually happens naturally and spontaneously. The child becomes aware of its Am-ness as revealed by its startled reaction to loud noises, but there is no knowingness. Same with the birds and fish and animals.
Take that no-knowingness to be “child ignorance” (which will be distinguished from “learned ignorance”). Learned ignorance - or knowingness - begins to come after a matter of months and years as the child is told that it has a name, that it was born, that it has a mother and father who created it, that it is a boy or girl, etc.
At that point, the similarities between a child’s existence and that of the naturally living fish and birds and animals come to an end. The child will thereafter undergo what often becomes a life-long accumulation of ignorant teachings that are presented as fact.
Because billions of persons claim to be affiliated with an organized religion, then in more than 95% of all cases, religious leaders join with the parents to begin teaching untrue ideas and beliefs and concepts to the child.
Soon, the terms “good boy / girl” or “bad boy / girl” will be heard for years to come. Teachers and politicians and relatives and neighbors will also eventually teach the child dualistic beliefs and falsehoods as if they were fact.
That part of the brain called “the mind” begins to develop as ideas and concepts and beliefs that are rooted in ancient myths and superstitions and fictional tales are presented not only as truths but also as truths that are beyond question.
By the age of six, the basic personality forms and determines what the child will think and say and do. Using personality as a coping tool early on is understandable.
The insanity comes when a six-year-old’s tool still controls all thoughts and words and deeds even when the child later becomes an adult aged 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 and 60.
The programmed and conditioned and acculturated child will grown into an adult that accepts hundreds of personas as identities. Because of not knowing who (or what) they are, persons will identify with the body and the mind and the personality and personas and will be blindly driven throughout their entire relative existence.
They will believe that they are making choices when, in fact, every thought and word and deed is determined by the fiction-filled mind and the agendas of their bogus personas / roles that have been assumed as identities.
As a result, instability and chaos become the accepted markers of the relative existence. Though misery and suffering follow, most are so dissociated from what they are feelings (or emoting, more often) that they will be completely out of touch with the way they truly feel.
A few - Maharaj estimated about 1.5% of the planet’s population, at the most - will realize that all of their beliefs are availing them nothing. Some will see that their ideas and concepts and beliefs are really contributing to their confusion and misery and suffering.
At that point, a few might think, or be heard to say, “I don’t even know who I am anymore.” (The fact is that they never knew, but the comment suggests that they are waking up enough to at least understand that there are key questions that cannot be answered with any part of the knowledge - the learned ignorance - that they have been taught).
At that point, a few will begin to seek for answers beyond the places where they were taught, beyond the people who taught them, and beyond the culture that helped condition them. Those few begin to look beyond their own culture for “a new guide or guides” that are offering a different set of pointers.
What a frustrating task they will have undertaken at that point, but at least the earnest, questioning search has begun. If they should find these pointers regarding non-duality, they will hear a guide say, “You are not what you think you are. You are not what ‘they’ told you that you are. And nothing you have learned so far will help you find the answers which you seek.”
The guide might even say, “The fact of the matter is that you must unlearn everything you have been taught in order for the way to be cleared for you to find truth and recognize it when it is seen.”
The ego of the seeker will often rebel at that point, wanting to hang onto some concepts, even if willing to question others. To assist in being free of personality, the guide might suggest that the seeker use no words after the statement “I Am,” a process that can eliminate the reinforcement of false identities.
There will be no more statements such as “I am a man / woman” or “I am an employee” or “I am a spouse” or “I am angry” or “I am sad.”
All of the false knowingness that resulted by following the “I Am” with nouns and adjectives can give way to the no-knowingness that is being proposed by these pointers, pointers which invite the seeker to abandon all identities - including the “good” ones - and reach for that Child Ignorance Stage (or, more accurately, the Child-No-Longer-Ignorant Stage).
If all concepts and ideas and beliefs are discarded, then the zero concepts stage is entered (or “re-entered,” since that was the stage that the child was in before having been exposed to knowledge / learned ignorance).
As noted earlier, however, both the knowingness and the no-knowingness are still aspects of the body and the relative existence. The end of the “journey” is even beyond that.
The requirement for continuation is a willingness to transcend not only identification with the body, the mind, and the personality but also the consciousness as well.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
The NEWEST OFFER
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.
