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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A KEY FEAR AMONG THE NON-REALIZED MASSES: THE FEAR OF TOTAL FREEDOM
“ . . . You are afraid of freedom!”
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“The suggestion that persons move about during the relative existence even if they are in a sleep state is not complicated. It happens to approximately eight billion humans every twenty-four hours as they dream that they are saying something or doing something even though they are totally asleep. The more complicated issue is that 50% of the people in the U.S. are opposed to people being awake, awoken, or ‘woke’ as they move about during the relative existence. The U.S. and the nearly 200 other countries on the planet are inhabited by somnambulists, and those who are asleep generally prefer to remain asleep.”
--Floyd Henderson
THE BASIS OF SOME OF THE MOST PREVALENT CEREMONIES THAT DRIVE UNNATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL LIVING
(Continued from yesterday)
Next, notice how the
following “teachings” that are usually at the core of the dogma of many
organized religions and spiritual movements are accepted without any
questioning, without any awareness that the teachings evolved from ceremonies
that were intended to assure rain for crops, and without any awareness of their
ignorant and barbaric roots:
1. They believe that a priest offers a message of hope and a means of “saving
you”;
2. They believe that some people can hear the voice of a god better than
others, it is claimed;
3. They believe that followers should be guided by one who is “holy.” (“Holy”
originally meant “different” - some claim they are different from others
because they are in closer contact with the gods);
4. They believe that truth is best found by gathering together with a religious
guide, for as long as you live, rather than by being alone to tap into one’s
own intuitive inner resource;
5. They believe that there is a “Supreme Being” or that there are “Supreme
Beings” from other worlds that are directing every aspect of our lives here on
earth, down to whether it rains or not;
6. They believe that each god chooses certain people on earth as
representatives;
7. They believe that the gods can get very angry and when that happens, they
will allow you to die or will kill you;
8. They believe that male gods value virginity, so strict controls must be
placed on the sexual conduct of followers (originally intended to insure a
steady supply of virgins for sacrifice) and they value virginity so highly that
26 religions were founded on their belief that their “savior” or “phrophet” was
born of a virgin. ;
9. They believe that a god wants people to make sacrifices (including property
and even your life);
10. They believe that followers are to be under the control and influence of
their priest, obeying the guidance he receives from god;
11. They believe that followers must adhere to the priest’s strict orders about
sexual conduct, must recognize the value of virginity, and must follow all
commands that both men and women abstain from having sex unless permission is
granted by the priest;
12. They believe that followers must accept the assertion that one among them
can communicate directly with Beings from another world;
13. They believe that followers must accept that killing in the name of a
Supreme Being is desirable and that the religious leader will decide who is to
die, how they are to die, and when they are to die;
14. They believe that followers are to accept responsibility for meeting all of
the priest’s earthly needs in order to free him up to work for their benefit as
he mediates between those Beings from another world and “his people”—his
flock—on earth. (The analogy is appropriate, is it not, since sheep will follow
the leader anywhere, even to their own death?);
15. They believe that the idea of dying for a religious cause had thus been
introduced to humans, and the idea of death as something positive had been
given and began to circulate.
The importance of the instinctive, natural desire to survive at all costs had been challenged and the merit of self-destructive (insane) behavior had been introduced and endorsed, as long as it had to do with one’s religion.
Where all prior
efforts by humans had been to endure and survive at all costs, the priest had
suddenly taught his followers that to die for god is a noble, honorable, and
deity-pleasing behavior; and
16. They believe that you can get what you want from god if you are willing to
sacrifice, if you have faith that the sacrifice will work, and if you are
willing to go even to the length of (a) killing for god or (b) suffering and/or
dying for god.
Trace those beliefs back 5000 years, consider that they have been taught and
passed on billions upon billions of times in religious and spiritual gatherings
for thousands of years, and it becomes clear how those teachings have taken
such hold among those programmed first and foremost to question nothing from a
holy man, including the acceptance of rape and murder and mutilation and the
drinking of blood and the eating of human flesh in religious ceremonies.
So most of the people on the planet go regularly for their ceremonies that
program and re-program, and condition and re-condition, persons to accept all
that they are taught about a god / gods, and the precepts above are a part of
the dogma of most organized religions and spiritual movements.
The god of Abraham is now worshipped by over 50% of the billions of people on the
planet who claim to be either Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. In addition to that
50%, another 47% of the people on the planet regularly attend religious or
spiritual ceremonies that program and re-program, and condition and
re-condition, persons to accept all that they are taught about their god or
gods.
In terms of a multiplicity of gods, the overall winner for having dreamed up
the highest number of supernatural beings - if all of their various traditions
are considered - are the Hindus with a total of 330,000 individual,
supernatural beings. Amazing specialization, yes?
During the typical religious ceremonies, people must sit and rise; bow; knell
and rise and knell and rise; sing; chant; recite in unison; burn this; smell
that; ring this; and wear special clothes, special shoes, or no shoes - all of
which is most unnatural while being considered “supernatural” or “spiritual.”
And in the process of making their ceremonies unnatural and supernatural, they
push their followers farther and farther away from what is natural, from what
is sane, from what is sensible, and from Reality;
therefore, it can be
seen that ceremony is one of the most widely-employed of all of the tools that
are used by those who program and re-program, and condition and re-condition,
persons while robbing them of sanity and freedom.
“Freedom” is the absence of ceremony and the ability to live naturally.
Next: Nationalistic ceremonies that rob persons of freedom and reinforce a
sense of separation, all of which blocks the opportunity for realization,
blocks the chance to return to sanity, blocks total freedom, and blocks
uninterrupted peace.
DEFINING FREEDOM - CONVENTIONAL SOURCES (cont.)
F.: [A continuation of the list from earlier] Among other things, Advaita is
about awakening; by contrast, nothing in any culture is about waking you up.
All is about:
1. Putting you to sleep
2. Keeping you asleep
and
3. Modeling the ways
by which persons can walk in their sleep, can talk in their sleep, and can
think in their sleep (i.e., dream and believe the dream is real).
Among the tools used by cultures to put persons to sleep and to keep them that
way are their ceremonies. Post-acculturation, there is no freedom so there can
be neither happiness nor peace;
post-acculturation, there can be neither freedom from ego nor freedom from egotism, for ceremonies generate false identities (egos) and trigger egotism to support those false ego-states.
How silly can ceremonies become?
Note how the supposedly “holy” leaders dress up for their ceremonies to see how absurd they can be:
Might this be deemed a Republican assault on religion?
All so very strange when one pauses to witness objectively what is happening with religion and spirituality (and, yes, even with non-duality messaging in similar quarters where magical thinking rules).
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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“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.
