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.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE ABILITY TO
IDENTIFY ONE SPECIFIC CAUSE OF ANY HAPPENING
“THE CAUSE OF ALL IS . . . ALL”
and
“EVERYTHING HAS NUMBERLESS CAUSES”
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
There is no such thing as the ability to identify one specific cause of any happening.
One attendee at a retreat here said, “Of course there is. My wife and I had a child because we had sex.”
The reply: “So did you both appear - POOF! - out of a vacuum, or did a billion-year chain of events result in the two of you being manifested? If the latter, then who could possibly identify each and every event that occurred to form that chain which resulted in you two composite unities currently being?”
Consider the pointers in this exchange:
A questioner reflected on Maharaj having said that events are causeless and
that no [single] cause can be assigned to any particular happening. Then,
trying to understand “the causelessness of things” [that is, that there is no
single cause] he asked:
Q: But what is your own experience?
M: Everything is uncaused. The world has no cause.
Q: I am not enquiring about the causes that led to the creation of the
world. Who has seen the creation of the world? It may even be without a
beginning, always existing. I take the world to exist - somehow. It contains so
many things. Surely, each must have a cause, or several causes.
M: Once you create for yourself a world in time and space, governed by causality,
you are bound to search for and find causes for everything. You put the
question and impose an answer.
Q: My question is very simple: I see all kinds of things and I understand that
each must have a cause, or a number of causes. You say they are uncaused - from
your point of view. But to you, nothing has being and, therefore, the question
of causation does not arise. Yet you seem to admit the existence of things, but
deny them causation. This is what I cannot grasp. Once you accept the existence
of things, why reject their causes?
M: I see only consciousness, and know everything to be but consciousness, as
you know the picture on the cinema screen to be but light.
Q: Still, the movements of light have a cause.
M: The light does not move at all. You know very well that the movement is
illusory, a sequence of interceptions and colourings in the film. What moves is
the film - which is the mind.
Q: This does not make the picture causeless. The film is there, and the actors
with the technicians, the director, the producer, the various manufacturers.
The world is governed by causality. Everything is inter-linked.
M: Of course, everything is inter-linked. And therefore everything has
numberless causes. The entire universe contributes to the least thing. A thing
is as it is, because the world is as it is. You see, you deal in gold ornaments
and I - in gold. Between the different ornaments there is no causal relation.
When you re-melt an ornament to make another, there is no causal relation
between the two. The common factor is the gold. But you cannot say gold is the
cause. It cannot be called a cause, for it causes nothing by itself. It is
reflected in the mind as ‘I am’, as the ornament’s particular name and shape.
Yet all is only gold. In the same way reality makes everything possible and yet
nothing that makes a thing what it is, its name and form, comes from
reality.
He continued:
M: Do you want to know all the causes of each event? Is it possible?
Q: I know it is not possible! All I want to know is if there are causes for
everything and the causes can be influenced, thereby affecting the events?
Every morning I pick up the newspaper and read with dismay that the world’s
sorrows - poverty, hatred and wars - continue unabated. My questions are concerning
the fact of sorrow, the cause, the remedy. Your insistence on causelessness
removes all hope of the world ever changing.
Later:
M: Having given reality to the picture on the screen, you love its people and
suffer for them and seek to save them. It is just not so. You must begin with
yourself. There is no other way. Work, of course. There is no harm in
working.
and
M: To take appearance for reality is . . . the cause of all calamities. You are
the all-pervading, eternal and infinitely creative awareness . . . .
and
M: You pray to save one, while thousands die. And if all stop dying, there will
be no space on earth.
Q: I am not afraid of death. My concern is with sorrow and suffering. My God is
a simple God and rather helpless. He has no power to compel us to be wise. He
can only stand and wait.
M: If you and your God are both helpless, does it not imply that the world is
accidental? And if it is, the only thing you can do is to go beyond it.
Thus the question raised earlier:
If, indeed, the god that most believe in is willing to “stand and wait” (and
any objective observation would show that would surely have to be the case)
then if the god that is being worshipped is unwilling or unmotivated to take
action, why would his ‘Followers’ / ‘The Believers’ not also follow that
example and stand and wait and witness only?
Because they are insane. How else to explain the lack of logic behind, “He is
my example, but I do the exact opposite of what he does”?
And the insanity manifests as well when the governments and societies and
factions around the globe pour their resources into their ideology-based
obsession with “stamping out evil” but do almost nothing to try to stamp out
ignorance and insanity.
And that is why (a) only a handful a day show up in places like the loft where
it is made clear that insanity is the issue and that you will only be for NOW
while (b) billions show up in the other venues that teach evil is the issue and
you must be free of it so that you can be . . . FOREVER. Of course the latter
message is the one that will be the most popular; thus, things will continue as
they are. So it is, but so in need not be.
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.
