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
(Continued)
They who think they already know will never seek the truth; they who think they have already arrived will never reach the final “destination.”
As this
series nears a close, pointers will be offered that can guide seekers beyond
the point where most fixate, believing that they have arrived and therefore
never completing the entire “journey.”
So these considerations are also offered:
29. The most “controversial pointers” (that is, those which trigger a reaction from persons among the non-realized
who are trapped in ego-states and egotism) are those that deal with their
religious and/or spiritual beliefs.
30. The religious and spiritual stages, however, are only the third of seven
steps on “the path” to full realization.
Certain pointers offered by Maharaj triggered reactions from those who were
identified with their supposedly-holy mirages, with their supposedly-sacred
images, with their false religious and /
or spiritual personas.
Especially riled were those who believed that
they had abandoned all of the “bad personas” and were presently identified with
their newly-assumed “good” and “noble” and “elevated” religious and/or
spiritual personas.
But Maharaj taught:
“Whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this
objective world, in the illusion. All this is happening in the objective world.
All is dishonesty. There is no truth in this fraud.”
“There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a
question of understanding.”
“When the birth is disproved, the great noble meaning of spirituality and the meaning of this world - everything -
is disproved.”
“I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been
told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”
Many among the non-realized masses
are not only prone to attach to the false and to develop bogus images to
impress others but also have an affinity for their “sham-ness.” It bothers them
not in the least, for most do not recognize a sham as a sham.
They love playing roles and assuming false identities, and they are so
dissociated from the effects that they think they are comfortable with their
fakery.
Alternately, some persons have a predisposition for seeking authenticity. They tire of the
phony and faked trappings of the relative existence very early on.
For other seekers, the disgust for all that which is counterfeit only develops
after years of tolerating such phoniness or even reveling in it. After years of
association with that which is not authentic, some few will seek that which is
real.
Yet most never move beyond the third stage. The remainder of the manifestation
is passed with kneeling and standing and kneeling; with striking special bowls
with special sticks and with ringing special bells or chimes.
In other cases, the remainder of the manifestation will be passed by wearing
special robes or crosses or by killing members of other religions. Some who are
more docile will hum and chant; some will shout and scream.
Years will be spent in asking favors of some external power; with following
some arbitrary, “holy” diet; by waving arms in the air or rolling on the floor
or speaking in unknown tongues.
Some will cry. Some will sing praises. Some will faint. Some will give away
their possessions or money. Some will allow a supposed “healer” to strike them
on the forehead, after which they will swoon.
Some will fight with others who have different beliefs. Some will claim that
they are casting out demons. Some will give thanks for all of the angels that
float about in their presence and “guard” them.
But almost all will question nothing; will believe with unwavering “faith”
anything that they are told by their “religious or spiritual leaders”; and will
believe they are being bathed in the noonday sun while they are actually only
standing in the dim light of damn.
They will claim that they have transcended identification with the
three-dimensional body (with its height and width and depth) and that they have
been rocketed into the fourth dimension.
But what actually happens is this: they become one-dimensional persons, walking
about the planet and claiming that everything that happens is a result of the
one god (or one set of gods) that they worship. Though they created their god
/ gods (with their fiction-generating “minds”) they will claim that
a creator god created them.
In believing that they understand the one cause of everything, they will really
not understand the cause(s) of anything.
The pointer was offered in previous posts that the
discarding of former “bad” roles and the assumption of “new and improved good
roles” (such as “The Religious One” or “The Spiritual Giant”) fixates persons
at the third step of a “journey” to Reality.
Persons who assume those roles usually stop at the halfway point on the “journey”
because the egotism that accompanies those two “good” ego-states convinces
persons that they have found all of the answers and understand all causes.
They believe that either (1) they know why everything happens as it does or (2)
they discount the times they do not understand by saying, “He works in
mysterious ways” or “The power of the universe is at work and that’s why
such-and-such happened.”
They also assume the persona of “The Know-It-All” whereas
the invitation here is to know nothing, to enter the Child-No-Longer-in-Ignorance
Stage.
The realized know that that which they
are is limitless, but those fixated at the third step in their
newly-assumed “good” personas become totally limited and - as noted earlier - become
one-dimensional persons, walking about the planet and claiming that everything
that happens is a result of the one god (or one set of gods) or the one force
or the one power that they worship.
The pointer was also offered that “in believing that they understand the one
cause of everything, they actually understand no cause(s) of anything.”
The result of the one-dimensional thinking among those
who believe they are functioning in a supernatural manner and in a fourth
dimension - or on a noumenal level - are actually in the depths of a form of
insanity called “monomania.”
Monomania is a mental illness where persons are “limited in expression to one
idea or area of thought” and are trapped in “excessive concentration on a
single object or idea,” in this case, “god” or “gods” or “the force” or “the
power.”
Once a religious or spiritual persona is adopted as a supposedly real identity,
then mental illness sets in. Rather than understanding that the cause of all is
all, “God” or “Gods” or the “God-force of the universe” or “the universe itself”
are said to be the cause of everything.
So the Dalai Lama claimed that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and destroyed
the town because of the “negative karma” of the people there. In that case, it was
the monomania, not the pure consciousness, that was speaking.
An Islamic leader claimed on the one-year anniversary of the fall of the Twin
Towers in New York that Allah was the cause of the towers falling because if he
had not wanted them to fall, then the mission by his fellow Muslims would not
have succeeded. Monomania, not the pure consciousness, spoke.
Religious fanatics in the U.S. also claimed that “the towers fell because of
God,” claiming that the Christian God wanted them to fall in order to send a
message to the non-Christians and to liberated women and to gays in the U.S.
that he was displeased with them. Monomania, not the pure consciousness, spoke.
The child shot during a gang’s drive by shooting died alongside the rival gang
members because “God works in mysterious ways” or “God needed a new little
angel.” Monomania, not the pure consciousness, spoke.
It is not unlike the woman who reported that “God saved her life” because a man
ran a red light but hit her in the front side of the car and that “if she’d
been two seconds sooner his car would have hit her broadside and killed her.”
She was offended when I asked, “You may be right, but if God is watching over you, why didn’t he move you through the intersection sooner or later to avoid being hit at all?”
More on the topic tomorrow.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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."
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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”
and
“When REALITY Is Overlaid on the RELATIVE.”
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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.
