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.
TWO KEY TRAITS OF THE MIND: CONFUSED AND CONFUSING
“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
"A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways."
--Yeshu'a
THE TWO KEY DRIVERS OF THE EGO-STATES STORED IN THE MIND
Each generation abides in a culture which is characterized and driven by preferred, beloved concepts. Some preferred concepts / beliefs begin and end with one generation; others extend through many generations because nothing is passed down more from generation to generation than beliefs.
Once such belief:
More. More. More. That has proved to be one concept which has experienced a multi-generational existence in some cultures, especially those with a capitalism-based economic and political system.
The minds of the masses in accumulation-oriented cultures are filled with more false identities which are driven by a desire to accumulate than those cultures which promote de-accumulation.
In accumulation-oriented cultures, one popular ego-defense mechanism is excessiveness which results in the persons in those cultures becoming attached to overindulging; to being immoderate; to wanting more than what is needed; to wanting a quantity beyond what is necessary or desirable; and to wanting to exceed others.
Many generations in the U.S. have engaged in a long-continuing societal war, one side endorsing the dominance of puritanical religions and favoring a puritanical government; the other side endorsing a culture with extended freedoms which would accept the “germ of wildness” which has sprung up as an alternative to the rigid - even dictatorial - puritanical theocracy which many would establish.
Puritans were members of a religious reform movement which arose within the Church of England in the late 16th century. They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not “rooted in the Bible.”
Denominations that are directly descended from the Puritan churches of New England include the Congregationalist Churches, a branch of the wider Reformed tradition; the United Church of Christ, the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, and the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference. Also strongly influenced by the early Puritans are Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, and far-right Evangelical churches.
The Puritans believed God had chosen a few people, "the elect," for salvation. The rest of humanity will be condemned to eternal damnation. But no one really knew if he or she was saved or damned; Puritans lived - and live on to this day - in a constant state of religious or spiritual anxiety, searching for signs of God's favor or anger.
From their teachings there have evolved as noted several religions which are still around in the U.S. even today, so the puritanical teachings have passed the test of time in the U.S., still a powerful force. They have learned that the best way to perpetuate their agenda is to gain political power and / or political influence.
One period saw a favorite agenda fall out of favor as was the case in the U.S. with Prohibition. Other concepts and beliefs have led to conflicts between conservative and liberal elements; to scientific and religious competitiveness; to differing political structures; to risk-taking vs. free expression, and to materialism vs. moral elements.
So what is a trend which remained in almost all cultures around the globe? The trend to program and condition and acculturate and domesticate and indoctrinate and brainwash the youngest generation with nonsensical beliefs and false identifications.
False identities (a.k.a., personal identifications, personas, facades, roles, characters, guises, ego-states, etc.) are assigned and / or assumed and are stored in human mind.
Once those false identities are stored, they remain; moreover, the mind will soon begin using ego-defense mechanisms to perpetuate and sustain the belief that those roles are actual identities by both the assumer of those identities and by the desire of the “assumers” to convince all others that those identities are real.
And what drives each assigned or assumed ego-state? Excessiveness. By their very nature, ego-states are excessive, wanting more and more and more: wanting longevity, wanting universal acceptance, wanting to morph from the roles to a “super version” of each role.
Hence, wife and husband soon self-upgrade those identities to Super Wife and Super Husband and expect the person playing the required co-dependent, counterpart role to upgrade as well.
Wife must have husband to “be,” but “Super Wife” requires a “Super Husband” to be - and vice-versa.
As for minds being filled with the belief in false identities, the trend has existed throughout many millennia. Moreover, each identity has always had two all-consuming basic traits, namely, a basic fear and a basic desire.
Those basic fears and basic desires inspire excessiveness.
So what is one preferred, beloved concept nowadays?
Acceleration (which blocks any chance for the practicing of patience and moderation and taking time to “smell the roses”).
Ego-states are modern-day accelerators. Because of fears, they never have enough of anything. Because of desires, they never feel anything even remotely close to a sense of fulfillment.
Let's let Maharaj have the final say:
Maharaj: “It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.”
and
To be selfish [excessively focused on “self’] means to covet, to acquire, to accumulate on behalf of the part against the whole.
This is the age in which the ego-defense mechanism-supported mind is driven by excessive fears and excessive desires. This is the age when acceleration (and thus excess) is the preferred, beloved concept / belief.
A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies.
Cars capable of faster and faster rates of acceleration are popular with many among the masses.
There are accelerators for startup companies; there are accelerated classes in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools as well as college programs.
And all of those involve ego and egotism which can only exist if false identifications and their agendas are already at play in the mind.
Maharaj: “The fruit ripens slowly . . . .”
and
“Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying realization.”
and
“Slow down.”
and
“Stop, look, investigate.”
and
“Abandon all self-concern; worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual; abandon every desire, gross or subtle; stop thinking of achievement of any kind.”
This is an age of “GO! DO! ZOOM!” Might you consider “taking the road less traveled” and “marching to the beat of a different drummer” than the fast-paced one playing throughout your culture?
The invitation: De-accelerate, de-accumulate. Sometimes, if a driver is about to crash, the brake is his or her best friend.
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.
