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
(Continued)
Yesterday’s post ended with this:
In other words, during that more restive period of human development, children were prepared to enjoy a relatively existence which could be marked by normalcy and decent levels of contentment and by some periods of joy and pleasure and even by occasional instances of bliss. That would change, however.
Nowadays, with the Ultimate Sickness having spread globally, leaving almost no humans who are immune and who are now suffering the misery which the symptoms of the Sickness generate, children are no longer prepared for pleasure but are made ready to experience misery and suffering instead.
And while being “prepared for” can facilitate the manifestation of peace and freedom and can set the stage for joy and pleasure to happen, being “ready for” will usually do the opposite.
REGARDING THE BRAIN AND MIND, WHAT IS TRULY ELEMENTAL AND NATURAL?
The elemental plant food brain - along with every cell in every living thing - is a physical object which cycles conscious-energy.
In the brain there are also five particular, elemental, plant food parts which - combined and working in unison - can store and sometimes retrieve information.
Conversely, the mind is not an elemental plant food part of the brain. The brain is an organ, but the mind is not. The brain can be touched, by a surgeon for example; the mind cannot be touched.
It is not elemental but is a non-concrete, abstract cluster or collection or assortment of distorted views. Concrete? No. Tangible? Yes. Abstract? Yes. Tangible? No. Meaning?
Meaning that the mind exists or manifests only as thoughts and ideas and notions and concepts, etc. (a.k.a., “beliefs”) but has no physical or elemental or concrete existence;
thus, the mind is totally conceptual, theoretical, notional, non-realistic, metaphysical (as opposed to physical), immaterial, and intangible; therefore, it is unnatural, not natural.
[And whatever comes from an unnatural source will also be unnatural, and that is why the mind can only generate unnatural thoughts and unnatural ideas and unnatural notions and unnatural concepts - all combined as unnatural “beliefs.”]
The brain and its parts can be touched. The mind cannot be touched and is just another imaginary concept which those driven by ignorance have dreamed up and erroneously believe exists literally within the physical body.
That belief is as bogus as the fictional concept of a “soul” which many also believe to be literally inside every person and is “something” that is invisible but is everlasting.
[The same people who place a higher value on their “minds” also place a very high value on their “beliefs” but often place the highest value on their “souls” even as they admit - when pressed - that the soul is an invisible, immaterial part of a human (or animal) that is, nevertheless, immortal.
Moreover, most if pressed further will admit that they don’t really know what the soul is exactly and will admit they do not know how to define it or explain it exactly but continue to believe that it is the most important thing ever.
The mind is similar to the concept of the soul, therefore, which is also invisible and immaterial. Some believe that the soul “consists of the mind, its thoughts, and its emotions,” so, in their book, a phantom mind is like a phantom soul in that they are both phantoms but are nevertheless believed to be material and immortal.
In fact, of course, both are apparitions and hallucinations, nothing more than figments of the imaginations and machinations of the nonsense-filled minds of the masses which temporarily store distortions and delusions and illusions and learned ignorance.]
Certain physical parts of the elemental plant food brain might be said to provide “a place for the non-physical mind to reside,” so to speak, but the abstract, non-concrete mind is actually only a mental, psychological, and emotional “construct” rather than something that is physical.
Thus, the mind is nothing more than a non-elemental conglomeration of usually muddled thoughts and perceptions and emotions and imaginings and false beliefs.
Nowadays, it is the mind which houses thoughts and memories and learned information which (post-programming, post-conditioning, etc.) presently amount to a conglomeration of distortions, illusions, delusions, and what Maharaj called, in general, one’s accumulated “learned ignorance.”
Such has not always been the case regarding the human mind. At one point in humankind’s evolutionary process, the mind was an asset, storing accurate information which could be recalled later to assist with the survival of the species.
(Recall the example of modern humans’ ancient ancestors who might have watched a man fall from a cliff and be smashed on the rocks below. The accurate information which was stored and could be recalled later under a similar circumstance? “Do not get so close to the edge of a cliff that you might fall onto the rocks below and be smashed.”)
Now that the Ultimate Sickness is so widespread (along with its key symptoms identified by Maharaj as the “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” which are stored in the mind), that storage section has become a liability, relatively speaking.
That includes being a liability as a result of not being able to differentiate between the true and the false; not being able to see the truth; and being incapable of functioning in a sane and sound and rationale and reasonable and non-self-defeating and non-destructive and non-self-destructive manner.
To that end, Maharaj said:
“Everyone 'creates' a world for himself / herself and lives in it, imprisoned by one’s ignorance. All we have to do is to deny reality to our prison.”
The mind has no reality. How ironic, then, that it controls the masses’ thoughts and words and actions which, in turn, generate so much misery and suffering for them and humankind in general.
Finally, after coming to understand completely the actual root of the Sickness, Maharaj shifted away from sharing religion-based / non-dual pointers and away from sharing spirituality-based / non-dual pointers and focused on offering a psychology-based version of the non-dual, Ultimate Medicine, saying that “realisation is but the opposite of ignorance.”
(Not the opposite of being unholy? No. Not the opposite of having a spiritual malady? No. Simply the opposite of being driven by ignorance? Yes.)
Thus, realization is not about becoming an expert in things Noumenal; it is not about earning a Ph.D. in the five, basic, non-duality teaching methods which are used to transmit non-dual pointers (or supposedly non-dual) pointers to seekers;
it is not about becoming an expert in one yoga or another; it is not about going into and out of samadhi; it is not about living in a way that guarantees a post-mahasamadhi reward rather than punishment;
it is not about living in a way to escape imaginary birth-life-death-rebirth cycles; it is not about being detached from “this world” and “things relative” and abiding in some “other upgraded world” where one can focus on “non-phenomenal things”;
it is not about escaping or avoiding or dissociating; it is not about replacing false, phenomenal identities with new and improved or great or Special Noumenal identities;
and it is not about moving mentally into castles in the air or into some dreamed up, deeply-philosophical, Foo Foo Land (which is often preferred by those who are handicapped by their supposedly-high and unique intellect which convinces them that they should be apart from rather than a part of any mundane relative existence).
Instead, it is about returning to the condition which one enjoyed prior to warped and warping programming, conditioning. etc., a condition which was “the opposite of ignorance.”
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.
