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.
The Anatomy of Human Memory Storage: The Elemental Brain vs. the Non-Elemental Mind
or
The Natural Brain vs. the Never-Natural Mind
“There is no such thing as mind. There are ideas . . . .” and “Abandon the wrong ideas, for they are false and obstruct your vision . . . .” and “The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom” and “To know that you are a prisoner of your mind - that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation - is the dawn of wisdom” and “I have no mind . . . .”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Consciousness is rooted in the Absolute. The brain is rooted in the elements. The "mind" is rooted in wrong programming and faulty conditioning and perverted domestication and xenophobia-based acculturation and warped indoctrination and distorted brainwashing as well as learned ignorance and lies and concepts and ideas and superstitions and falsehoods (a.k.a., “beliefs”).
---Floyd Henderson
“Realization is nothing more than a process which results in a person being freed from believing in all learned ignorance.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
TABULA RASA
“Tabula rasa,” Latin, means “blank tablet” or “clean slate” or, as Aristotle called it, the “unscribed tablet”).
The term refers to the absence of - at the point of the manifestation of a “human” composite unity - any and all preconceived, predetermined ideas, notions, concepts, perceptions, images, views, thoughts, etc. (a.k.a., “beliefs”).
The understanding among the wisest has long been . . .
A. that the parts of the elemental brain associated with “mind-ness” - a prefrontal cortex, a neocortex, a basal ganglia, a cerebellum, a hippocampus and an amygdala - are present in a normal human brain at “birth”
but
B. that none of those are storing at the time of manifestation any innate ideas, notions, concepts, etc.
The term “Tabula rasa” points to the fact that “individuals” do not manifest with any built-in mental content and that “all knowledge, therefore, comes from experience or from perception” (or from misperceptions and the teaching of ignorance;
hence, Maharaj’s references to “learned ignorance.” He also made clear in his later talks that “realization simply refers to the result of discarding all belief in learned ignorance.”)
Tabula rasa can be traced back to the writings of Aristotle who shared the following in his treatise De Anima:
“Haven’t we already disposed of the difficulty about interaction involving a common element, when we said that mind is in a sense potentially whatever is thinkable, though actually it is nothing until it has thought?
“What it thinks must be in it just as characters may be said to be on a writing-tablet on which as yet nothing stands written: this is exactly what happens with mind.”
In the 11th century, the understanding of tabula rasa was developed more clearly by the Persian philosopher Avicenna (in Arabic, “Ibn Sina”). He argued that the “human intellect at birth resembled a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and comes to know” [and is, therefore, no longer “pure”].
Moreover, it is now understood by the wise that so-called “knowledge” is passed down verbally and by example from humans to other humans via use of ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, indoctrination, and brainwashing.
The more modern explanation of tabala rasa is attributed mostly to John Locke’s discussion of the subject in “Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” particularly using the terms “white paper” and “blank tablet.”
Locke understood the facts around tabula rasa and used that “blank tablet” term to describe the state of the prefrontal cortex, a neocortex, a basal ganglia, a cerebellum, a hippocampus and an amygdala at the point of what persons call “birth.”
That said, nothing regarding the take here on tabala rasa negates the fact that certain genetic information is passed along from human to human which can result in a body of archetypal images and which can affect IQ and which can result in alcoholism, gender identity and many, many other “traits.”
[Note that those “traits” are not passed down via any “mind” or via any of the parts of the brain associated with “mind-ness.”]
To review Maharaj’s take on this topic, he said:
“There is no such thing as peace of mind.”
That pointer has been expanded here to make this point:
“There is no such thing as peace of mind. There is only peace if you are out of your mind” (meaning – actually - out from under the control and influence of “their” minds).
What he came to understand about the fact that
the Ultimate Sickness is a mind Sickness
and that
it is not a too-little-dogma Sickness
and that
it is not a spiritual malady Sickness
and what realization is and what it is not
resulted in what may have been the most significant advancement ever regarding the genuine and only authentic and valid meaning of the non-dual message.
The understanding which was arrived at in the third, psychology-focused stage of his message’s evolution - and which elucidated and clarified the genuine and authentic and valid meaning of the non-dual message - had actually been explicated some 1,980 or so years earlier by Yeshu’a / “Jesus” when he purportedly said: “A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.”
In that one line, Yeshu’a made clear that the non-dual message is not that “A non-religious or atheistic person is unstable in all ways.”
In that one line, Yeshu’a also made clear that the non-dual message is not that “A non-spiritual or secular or worldly and or earthly or non-celestial natural vs. supernatural human is unstable in all ways.”
An illustration used to provide an example of a naïve optimist is this:
Trackers trace scat (wild animal droppings) to find a particular animal they are hunting. The lad pictured above thinks he is doing the same: surely a huge pile of horse manure must indicate that he’s on the trail of a pony which he wants; unfortunately, he could dig through such piles for years and never find a pony.
So it was with Maharaj and millions or billions before him. He and billions dug through religious scat and spiritual scat and philosophical scat and ideological scat in search of what they were hunting.
No luck.
Finally, he determined that the effective Ultimate Medicine for the Ultimate Sickness is one which addresses and eliminates the nonsense stored in the mind, namely, a compound version of psychology-based pointers and the non-dual understanding.
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.
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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.
