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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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
To conclude with a key pointer that is relevant to yesterday’s post:
A final point about being rid of the mind: The task does not require the far-too-long process of trying to organize an approach to address specific categories of faulty information stored in the mind.
It will not work to try to address ideas and then concepts and then thoughts and then designs and then schemes and then impressions and then images and then notions and then opinions and then views and then theories and then perceptions, etc.
The elemental plant food body of any given composite unity / human will never last long enough to accomplish such a time-consuming approach to nonsense elimination. But realized non-dualists offer a simpler plan:
All of the above deals with “beliefs,” so rather than trying to target the content of categories of learned ignorance, one can focus on one task: eliminate all beliefs and one automatically removes all of the ignorance and insanity stored in the mind.
As for that computer mentioned in a recent post, the one that a visitor used to try to open an obviously dubious site which sent a virus to the hard drive, it was likely that there were still certain malware infections which were hidden and running in the background even after I performed a restore.
While the main threat to the system was addressed on that occasion, I had to bring in a competent computer repair technician to removed all elements of the virus and restore the system to an entirely pure state.
That is similar to the task of a realized guide, and that reveals what this “path” and “journey” are about, so if seekers only reach the fourth Child No-Knowing State step and only remove the main threat to their system (namely, belief in the “not-you’s” and the fears and desires they generate as well as all of the other nonsensical beliefs that are held), then completion of even four steps can make the effort worthwhile, relatively speaking.
At that point, one of the most common mental infections which leads to the Sickness - namely, “a belief that false identities are real” - will be removed.
If that happens, then one of the most common sources of misery and suffering and fighting and chaos and instability (namely, the hidden, subconscious agendas of personalities which subconsciously control thoughts and words and actions) will also be removed.
In the end, “full realization” comes when all learned ignorance is discarded, along with all of the distortions, illusions, delusions, and accumulated “learned ignorance” which accompany programming, conditioning, etc.
The “aim” is not to use the mind to learn and store even more ignorant and insane ideas and concepts and impressions and theories and views (a.k.a., “beliefs”) but is to return to the “Child Ignorance Stage.”
Maharaj described that stage as a “no-mind,” “non-dual,” “zero concepts” state. Once there, one can lighten up by discarding the totality of the mind’s content which, again, is made up of ignorant and insane ideas and concepts and impressions and theories and views (a.k.a., “beliefs”).
The invitation: go ahead and take whatever steps are required for you to “realize,” but understand that realization is nothing more than “the opposite of ignorance.”
WHY MAHARAJ SHIFTED FROM
USING A SEVEN-STEP PATH
to
USING A FOUR-STEP PATH
Originally, Maharaj used a seven-step path to realization. Same here. Though he never laid out, “Here is step one, here is step two, etc.,” his most perceptive followers that read the transcripts of his early talks were able to see what he was doing with each visitor whom he counseled. Then, the seven steps became clear.
It became clear that his method used most often involved allowing a visitor to the loft to talk enough to reveal which step she or he was on.
If one had moved beyond body identification but was stuck at the second step and was not moving beyond mind identification, then Maharaj’s pointers were intended to allow the seeker to understand step two and then shift to step three.
If a seeker was stuck at step three and attached to a religious and / or spiritual role, then Maharaj attempted to allow the seeker to see the assumed “good” roles are as unfounded and illogical as the supposedly “bad” roles which had (maybe?) been abandoned and to then move to the fourth zero concepts / zero beliefs step (a.k.a., the Child Ignorance Stage or the Child No-Knowing State).
Because of that approach, Maharaj might tell one seeker on a Tuesday to do such-and-such but might on Wednesday tell a different seeker at a different step to do something that might seem to be the total opposite of the such-and-such pointers he offered the day before.
That led the less wise to claim that Maharaj was “always contradicting himself” and “had no consistent message,” but the fact was that he was offering what is called here “level-appropriate pointers.”
Maharaj tried to make clear that the steps must be completed in an exact order, explaining that each should “Follow the same path by which you came”
with this exception:
“ . . . You should go back, reverse, to the source.” In other words, there was a “coming in” path and there is a “going out or going back path.” It’s actually the same path but followed by wise seekers in the opposite direction.
The “going back” involves being un-taught and unlearning.
The “coming in path” included steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 with step 7 being the one which drives persons to end up in a body identification state which is as far removed from one’s original nature as can be,
with step 6 being the one which drives persons to end up in a mind identification state which is almost as far removed from one’s original nature as can be,
and
with step 5 being the one which drives persons to end up in a personality identification state which is well removed from one’s original nature as can be, etc., etc., etc.
The going back path, which is the one seekers of realization should be following now, simply goes in reverse:
Seekers must first be freed from body identification, so that is step number one on the reverse, going back path.
Then they must be freed from mind identification, so that is step number two on the reverse, going back path.
Etc., etc., etc.
When the seven-step path was being used, then step 5 dealt with understanding the difference between Pure Witnessing vs. dualistic subject-object witnessing; step 6 dealt with understanding what the so-called “True Self” is and what it most assuredly is not;
and step 7 dealt with “Reality” and the “Non-Beingness” and the non-confined, limitless, and unrestrained Original State of the Absolute (i.e., The Totally Pure State of Specialized Energy) where awareness-energy is - but where it is not aware of itself or anything else.
From there, the conscious-energy form of awareness-energy (that conscious-energy not originally being conscious of itself or anything else) can manifest into a confined, limited, and restrained space (in a composite unity, for example) and become conscious of itself and instantly understand “I AM.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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.
