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 newer 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.
THE CURSE OF HUMANKINDS’ RELATIVE EXISTENCE: IDENTIFICATIONS
“The personality
is but a product of imagination.”
“It is the taking
yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to
exist on its own rights.”
“It is the [false] 'self' that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it.”
“Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the [false] 'self' is not right because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
[Continued from yesterday: The Tale of Three Bears, One “Wife,” and Floyd]
With that female bear, I had just witnessed one of the most threatening postures in all of nature. The threat of being “destroyed” was real. The fear was natural. The anticipation of being hurt was natural. The sense of threat was natural.
Fast forward to the day which followed a most amazing night with my wife. (No details, but her actions seemed to say, “It’s not just ‘all good’ – it’s “all great”!”) In light of the previous night, there was quite the shock when she said the next day, “Oh, by the way, I’m leaving you.”
As I stood outside the house watching her drive away, there came a near-overwhelming sense of being “hurt and interfered with and threatened,” of being harmed by a real attack, of a sense of being drowned in a variety of emotions, of a sense of being “destroyed.”
The overpowering, instinctive options took charge and led to ill-serving confusion: Flight? Fight? Or Freeze? Fall down into a ball, or fight for my life? (And that “life” which I was feeling driven to fight for was actually just “the life” of the role of “The Husband”).
At that point in the telling of story I was sharing with Mark, I paused to provide an opportunity, maybe, for the full impact of the message to “sink in.” Then I asked, “Can you relate, Mark?” He answered only with an affirmative but not enthusiastic nod.
Then I said, “Consider the two reactions involving my encounters with those two females. The feelings were the same. The emotions were the same. The beliefs about being hurt and being interfered with and being threatened were the same. The confusion was the same. What was different was the warped perspective.
“In the first case, I was facing the most threatening posture in nature: an angry, protective female reared up and growled and extended her claws to the max and then charged me.
“In the second case, I was facing the least threatening posture in nature: a female was not charging me but was showing me her back, was moving away from me, just as was the case with your wife, with your daughters’ mother.
“So why did I feel paralyzed, as if I might burst right out of my skin? Why were the reactions in those two very different circumstances the exact, same reaction? They should not have been. Why were they not different?”
Then I gave him the answer:
“Because of the warped perspective of a mind filled with a plethora of assigned and assumed personalities which were all feeling ‘hurt, interfered with, and threatened, including, in your case, ‘The Super Husband,’ ‘The Super Father,’ ‘The Finance Man,’ ‘The Lover,’ ‘The Homeowner,’ ‘The Family Man,’ ‘The One Being Victimized,’ etc., etc., etc.”
“That,” I continued, “is what personality-inspired delusion can look like; that is what personality-inspired insanity can look like; that is what the results of the warped perspectives that come with body and mind and personality identifications can look like. To be freed from being driven by the hidden agendas of multiple personalities might be enough to change the entire remainder of one’s relative existence.”
I said: “The effects of my encounter with the second female, the one that moved away from me, were limited in duration only because I understood ‘who’ was feeling emotionally-intoxicated around that experience.
“Freedom and peace can come if we understand that we are not really being threatened or destroyed and that all that is happening is this: a role that we had been playing is coming to an end because the required, co-dependent player of the counterpart role is not going to be playing the role any longer.”
“If the female lead of a Broadway play decides to leave, a new female lead is found to fill the role. The lead actor did not have to kill the actress who decided she wanted to leave and look for other roles to play. In other cases, a play might run for as long as it is still productive, but if it is no longer productive, then the run ends.”
“The actors and actresses move on without being driven by insanity to try to kill each other or themselves. That’s because they know they are just actors and actresses on a stage . . . that the play they are in is not what’s real . . . that they are not being threatened, much less destroyed or killed. They have a clear perspective, knowing their roles do not define who they are.”
Just as Maharaj predicted, Mark was stunned into silence.
I continued: “The real rub: most would be just like I was an hour after the first encounter with the bear: I had bathed, changed into clean clothes, and was enjoying a warm meal, smiling and laughing with the lodge owner.”
“The greater rub: how long does it take for some men to get beyond their warped perspective when they experienced an encounter like the second one I just described? For most, not an hour, not a year, not a decade, not ever. You never got beyond your warped, personality-inspired distortion.”
Mark sat bowed over with his elbows on his knees and his head looking down at the floor. After a long pause, he raised his head and stared at me. He could not say a word. That was as it should have been. I asked if, in closing, I might read a few lines for him to consider. He nodded again.
I opened my briefcase and took out a sheet of paper and read the lines typed on it:
“This is from a man they called ‘Maharaj.’ He said: “Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your own imagination! However is the picture, beautiful or ugly, you are painting it and you are not bound by it. Realize that there is nobody to force it on you, that it is due to the habit of taking the imaginary to be real. See the imaginary as imaginary and be free of fear.”
and
“What begins and ends is mere appearance. The world can be said to appear, but not to be. The appearance may last very long on some scale of time, and very short on another, but ultimately it comes to the same. Whatever is time-bound is momentary and has no reality.”
“Just like you, I appeared, in my imagination, to be ‘A Husband,’ ‘A Father,’ ‘A Finance Man,’ ‘A Lover,’ ‘A Homeowner,’ ‘A Family Man,’ ‘The One Being Victimized,’ etc., etc., etc. Awakening to truth, I understood I was none of those and I am none of those. I was free. I am free. I was at peace. I am at peace’.”
Then, I handed the paper to Mark with no expectations that the lines would be understood or allowed to affect the remainder of the manifestation. My part was done. The rest was up to him, or not.
In the loft, that was always the case. Here, that’s always the case, too.
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.
