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[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."
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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.)
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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
(Continued)
Now, if a body and mind and personality triad were to survive the relative intact and survive the taking of mahasamadhi intact (which cannot possibility happen) and if the dreamed up concept of “soul” were proved to be true and a post-relative-manifestation “eternal life” were to come (which cannot possibly happen) . . .
then one might possibly want to study the pointers regarding steps 5 through 7 simply for the sake of “traveling through familiar territory post-manifestation.”
Yet that is all irrelevant and immaterial because no “you” will exist post-manifestation, that supposedly “you” being nothing more than a composite unity triad of elements and oxygen and temporarily-manifested, always cycling conscious-energy.
And what happens to those three temporary components of a temporary “you” at the time mahasamadhi is taken? The elements return to the universal pool of elements; the oxygen returns to the universal pool of air; and
the consciousness / conscious-energy returns to the universal pool of conscious-energy (where it will once again be conscious of nothing and aware of nothing).
Thus, Maharaj came to see that with so few ever reaching a state of realization, the energy and time expended on trying to understanding the messages of steps 5, 6, and 7 was a waste of time. Why?
Because post-manifestation, there will be no you to know anything, to be aware of anything, to experience anything, or to see anything. There will be non-beingness . . . no one being. Period.
Thus, in his later years of sharing non-dual pointers, he urged seekers to forget about all that is covered in step 5, 6, and 7 and to focus solely on completing steps 1 through 4.
So he said: “You need not find the answer to ‘Who am I?’ or to ‘What am I?’” Instead, he said, “It is enough to know who / what you are not.”
And where does that happen? It happens after you know that . . .
you are not the body
and after you understand that . . .
you are not the mind and not the content of the mind nor anything to do with all of the other the BS also stored in the mind
and after you understand that . . .
you are not any of the personalities / personal identifications which were assigned to you or which you later assumed on your on
and after you understand that . . .
you are nothing that is personal; nothing that has any identification (much less any Special, Supreme or Infinite Identification); nothing that will be forever; and nothing that can be named or labeled.
When one reaches that “zero concepts” state and that “no beliefs” state and that no-knowing state, then one has reach the fourth step where “It is enough to know who / what you are not.” Searching is done. Seeking is complete.
At that point, therefore, seeking should end and “the dancing lightly” begins and lasts for the remainder of the manifestation. Why?
If one misplaces one’s car keys and is searching for them, what happens the very instant that the keys are found? Searching is done. Seeking is complete.
If one has in hand the keys which were being sought but continues to search for the keys, would you not conclude, “That persons is obviously crazy or suffering from some kind of mental irregularity”?And spot on you would be.
Now, what is the primary obstacle to understanding that “It is enough to know who / what you are not”?
The BS which makes up what is called “the mind.” It is that BS which blocks the formerly pure, universal consciousness from being able to differentiate between true and false; to see clearly; to perceived accurately; to understand;
to be free of ignorance; to be free of insanity; to stop believing lies; to have the sense to move away from those suffering from an extreme case of assholism (or to be freed from an extreme case of assholism if you have contracted it);
to be free of the “dual-mindedness” which guaranteed that one “will be unstable in all ways”; to stop normalizing madness, lunacy, and chaos and to abandon the insane attachment to chaos which many have; and to stop abusing others (and / or to refuse to tolerate abuse from anyone else).
The early “mind” which was an asset to the perpetuation of the human species has become a major liability to the perpetuation of the species; to enjoying the relative existence; to being free of belief in learned ignorance (which, per Maharaj, is all that the condition of realization is);
and to being freed of the insanity which is forced on persons from external sources (included parents, relatives, friends, ignorant teachers, big name teachers who are cons, religious leaders, political leaders, business leaders, ad infinitum).
So, as summarized below, Maharaj’s pointers turned more and more to the mind.
It is the mind which is a storehouse for body and personality identifications.
It is the mind which is a storehouse for dualistic and, therefore, bogus ideas and concepts and notions and misperceptions (a.k.a., “beliefs”) which generate instability and chaos and misery and suffering.
It is the mind which is a storehouse of the ignorant and insane beliefs which were planted therein by ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination.
It is the mind which is a storehouse of all which imprisons persons.
It is the mind which is a storehouse to all which results in a false sense of different-from-ment which - in turn - always leads to a subsequent sense of better-than-ment.
It is the mind, being the storehouse of beliefs about different-from-ment and better-than-ment, which leads to a false sense of separation which then sets the stage for arguments, nonsensical disagreements, fighting, conflict, killing, wars, chaos, pain, misery, and suffering.
It is the mind which is a storehouse of learned ignorance, personality disorders, and the neuroses and psychoses which can follow as personality disorders disintegrate into a state of severe psychic unhealthiness.
At every step, the long and arduous “path” which was followed here for decades involved dealing with persons who were all determined to use their dogma or exercises or beliefs or methods to add more to the mind, touting the need for more dogma, more spiritual exercises, more philosophy, more ideology, more (but different) beliefs, ad infinitum.
The long and arduous search ended when it became clear that (1) all of the stuff in the mind was the actual source of every problem, the mind being the origin of every problem; and that (2) the solution did indeed call for de-accumulation . . . that is, called for entering into a process of being un-taught all of it; called for entering into a process of un-learning it all;
and called for casting aside all of the nonsense which had been added to and stored in a part of the brain which would be called “the mind” and which would lead to decades of ignorant and nonsensical and insane actions which led to massive levels of misery and suffering that did not end until the mind came to an end.
How to end the mind, the entire content of which can all be summarized with the term, “one’s beliefs”? Abandon all beliefs.
No beliefs? No mind.
No mind? No stone walls.
No stone walls? Freedom.
As has been noted here, each belief, each assumed persona, and each scrap of learned ignorance which is all stored in the mind . . . each of those becomes one of the many bars which are used to form the prison of the mind.
Want to be freed from prison? Cut away the bars of beliefs; the bars of identifications (or "Identification"); and the bars of taught and learned ignorance.
Only then can you be free of dualistic thinking, and only free of dualistic thinking can you be truly free; and only if truly free of the effects of all of the heavy, burdensome nonsense stored in the mind can a sense of lightness manifest once again; and only if a sense of heaviness ends and a sense of lightness returns can you be happy.
(As Maharaj said, “It really is simple,” yes?)
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.
