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.
WHEN THOUGHTS AND WORDS AND ACTIONS ARE DRIVEN BY FAITH RATHER THAN FACTS
“I have no faith in anything which has ever been told . .
. .”
“I have no faith in anything . . . .”
“I have no faith . . . .”
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The invitation for the next few days will be to consider the words of Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj in determining which of the following statements is
factual:
A. “Evil is the cause of all bad things that happen on the planet”
or
B. “Ignorance, stupidity, and / or insanity are three of the key elements in a
long chain of causation in which the cause of all is ultimately . . . all.”
Maharaj said, “I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even
what has been told by the Vedas.” By the end of his teaching career, his
pointers were based in the Natural Yoga along, having turned his back on
Hinduism and the Vedas and anything else that was outside that which he
understood from his “own experience.”
His words over the next several days will be applied to certain contemporary
examples in order to examine the evidence. First, his words regarding “faith.”
Consider: “I have no faith in anything
which has ever been told . . . .”
“I have no faith in anything . . . .” “I have no faith . . . .”
On one of my sites, I offer this consideration: “Is it possible that everything you’ve ever heard, have ever been told, or have ever read is . . . false?”
Next, consider the headlines from recent newspaper articles dealing with two
events in the U.S. that share in common the key elements of “faith” and “killing
/ death.”
In the U.S., there was one case in which the actions of two Christians led to the death of two children; in the second case, the actions of two Muslims led to the death of a child and two adults. Consider how differently the public is reacting to the two events that share those key factors in common:
CATHERINE, HERBERT SCHAIBLE’S SECOND CHILD DIES AFTER PARENTS USED FAITH-DRIVEN PRAYER, NOT MEDICINE
April 23, 2013
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A couple serving probation for the 2009 death of their
toddler after they turned to prayer instead of a doctor could face new charges
now that another son has died.
Herbert and Catherine Schaible belong to a fundamentalist Christian church that
believes in faith healing. They lost their 8-month-old son, Brandon, last week
after he suffered from diarrhea and breathing problems for at least a week, and
stopped eating. Four years ago, another son died from bacterial
pneumonia.
Herbert Schaible, 44, and his 43-year-old wife grew up in the First Century
Gospel Church in northeast Philadelphia and have served as teachers there. The
church’s website has a sermon titled “Healing – From God or Medicine?” that
quotes Bible verses purportedly forbidding Christians from visiting doctors or
taking medicine.
“It is a definite sin to trust in medical help and pills; and it is real faith to trust on the Name of Jesus for healing,” says the message from last May.
At a hearing, a judge told the couple they had violated the terms of their
probation, noting the Schaibles had told investigators that they prayed to God
to make Brandon well instead of seeking medical attention.
“You did that once, and the consequences were tragic,” Philadelphia Common
Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner said.
Their defense attorney said: “Nobody argues that these aren’t very loving,
nurturing parents.”
Really? Nobody? The use of “nobody” and “everybody” are surefire
red flags that you’re about to hear a lie.
So which is it? “Evil?” Or “ignorance, stupidity, and insanity?”
Case #2:
BOSTON BOMBING SUSPECTS APPARENTLY MOTIVATED BY FAITH
April 22, 2013
UPDATE: The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon appear to
have been motivated by their religious faith but do not seem connected to any
Muslim terrorist groups, U.S. officials said Monday after interrogating the
severely wounded younger man.
In this second case, it is not likely that many in the U.S. will say that “nobody
argues that these aren’t very loving, nurturing people.”
Again, Maharaj: “After the information given to you by the mother, that you are
a boy or girl, all your further acquisitions are by hearsay.”
The acquisition in the first case: “You are ‘Christians’ who have the power to
heal through prayer. Please God by using that power, not doctors and medicine,
to heal your sick children.”
The acquisition in the second case: “You are ‘Muslims’ who have the power to
kill when vengeance is called for. Please Allah by becoming ‘The Avengers’
against American imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Is it not insanity when one invents a concept and then allows it to drive all
future thoughts and words and actions? And what - other than the invention of a
particular faith and a particular “God” - drives humanity more when a majority
claim an affiliation with one organized religion or another and when millions
more claim to be “spiritual, not religious” and worship a God and beg for
things? Maharaj on that “invention of a God”:
“First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then,
in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God.
Then you worship such a God and . . . you pray to that God for something good
to happen to you.”
See, there are on the planet hundreds of “different nationalities,” many “different
skin colors,” and thousands of “different ethnicities,” all generating beliefs
about “different-from-ment”; however, there is only one thing that 98% have in
common: they believe in the tenets of a religion and they believe in a god (or
gods and goddesses).
Thus, nothing drives the thoughts and the words and the
actions of the eight billion persons on the planet more than religion and
religious and / or spiritual faith and religious and / or spiritual beliefs.
And those result in a planet-wide sense of “different-from-ment” because the
tenets and practices and god or gods of all of those religions are numerous and
different.
Add in the fact that nothing generates more emotional intoxication
than religious debates and arguments and disagreements and it should become
clear why more persons on the planet have died from religious ignorance and
religious fighting and religious wars than any other causes besides “natural”
causes.
Is the conclusion that “all religious people are evil”? No, there are no
persons who are either good or evil. The conclusion points to ignorance,
stupidity and insanity.
Consider the points offered in these exchanges:
Questioner: “Do you mean to say that between good and evil there is no wall?”
Maharaj: “There is no wall, because there is no good and no evil.”
and
Questioner: “How is it that there is so much evil in my world?”
Maharaj: “There is no evil . . . .”
Again, Maharaj: “After the information given to you by the mother, that you are
a boy or girl, all your further acquisitions are by hearsay.”
“You are a Christian” is “hearsay”? Yes.
Based in that additional persona acquisition, were there, as a judge said in one case, “consequences [that] were tragic” because of the “further
acquisition” of a faith-based, additional identity / persona / personality?
Relatively speaking, yes. For five thousand years or more, there have been “tragic
consequences,” relatively speaking, as a result of the “further acquisition” of
faith-based identities / faith-based personas / faith-based personalities.
“You are a Muslim” is “hearsay”? Yes.
Based in that additional persona acquisition, were there, as a judge said this
week in one case, “consequences [that] were tragic” because of the “further
acquisition” of a faith-based, additional identity / persona / personality?
Relatively speaking, yes. For five thousand years or
more, there have been “tragic consequences,” relatively speaking, as a result
of the “further acquisition” of faith-based identities / faith-based personas /
faith-based personalities.
And what if a child were given the “further acquisition”
from early on that he is a bird? And what if all of the persons in his culture
supported that lie? And what if he and a friend died as a result of that
belief?
The question then is, “Having brought about relative ‘tragic
consequences’ while acting like a bird because he was told that he was a bird,
would that child have been driven by ‘evil’ or would that child have been
driven by the ignorance and insanity that was disseminated in his home and in
his culture?”
One book offered here is entitled “FREEDOM FROM BELIEFS (Believers,
Non-Believers, and “No-Belief-ers”).
Are you seeing why there can be no such thing as “freedom” if beliefs are present?
If a person was driven to pick cotton by an overseer with a whip and a gun, or if a person is driven by unquestioning, blind faith, neither person was free or is free.
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.
