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.
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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 ABUSED-ABUSERS-ABUSED STRESS-PERPETUATING CYCLE
(continued)
“The cause of all is all.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The National Geographic film A Portrait of a Killer, mentioned yesterday, examines the types of stress which living beings can endure, and how it can thus affect the rest of their bodies. Severe chronic stress can even lead to the destruction of brain cells.
A Portrait of a Killer
What humans can learn from primates about the roots of humankind's problems which result from untreated trauma and stressors:
Delayed responses to untreated trauma can include persistent fatigue, sleep disorders, nightmares, fear of recurrence, anxiety focused on flashbacks, depression, and avoidance of emotions, sensations, or activities which are associated with the trauma, even remotely.
Before moving on with the
discussion of the pointers offered in the film “STRESS: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER,”
the various forms of stress and the various causes of stress might be
considered, along with what the non-dual understanding might address and what
it cannot.
There are certainly many causes of stress and Maharaj taught that “the cause of
all is all.” Might there not only be multiple root causes of stress (both
internal and external) but also more than one form of stress? That would
certainly complicate some of non-duality’s
stress-reducing-or-stress-eliminating counsel.
Non-duality’s “first line of defense” is to encouragement seekers to look
internally to find the root of one’s problems rather than looking externally.
Yet on the savannah, it has
been shown that the baboons at the lower end of a troop’s rigidly-defined
hierarchy can be tending to their own business and will still be affected by
externals - that is, by alpha males that are exhibiting the same kinds of
sociopathic tendencies when on the attack that are observable in their human
counterparts.
And certainly valid non-dual pointers are spot on when they point out that no
one can stress any part of a composite unity; that no one can stress energy
(including the conscious-energy); that no one can stress the air circulating
through a space;
that no one can stress earth
elements; and that much human stress is rooted in imaginary ego-state that are
forever feeling as if they are being hurt or interfered with or
threatened.
And also certainly Derek Hough was onto something when he made the point that “pressure
does not exist” . . . that persons “create pressure” for themselves. That is,
pressure is an illusion, an illusion that is as much a product of the mind as
any other illusion.
Yet might there be both internal and external causes of stress during the
relative existence as experienced by most humans? Is the pressure real - at
least relatively speaking - for one being assaulted by a brutal alpha male on
the savannah?
[It might be of especial interest to some when the discussion here reaches the
point where the researcher and filmmaker Sapolsky explained “the how and why”
regarding a previously-violent, hostile troop culture that was transformed into
a peaceful troop that eventually came to enjoy an existence marked by equality
and a state of cooperation that was marked by calmness and quietness and
serenity.]
Moreover, might it be possible to eliminate many sources of human stress
through “the understanding” and then reduce the effects from other sources of
stress through identifying any external stressors and staying the heck away
from those?
Then, might other sources that
cannot be avoided - like those imposed by governmental interference or by
dominating religions which control the members of many cultures - might those
be addressed to some degree through non-attachment and through pure
witnessing?
Are you seeing how truly complicated the quest for peace and serenity and a
stress-free existence is nowadays, all around the globe? Are you seeing that no
single, simple solution can exist?
Are you seeing that the overly-simplistic solution offered by most among the non-realized masses - to “just have faith” or to “be more spiritual” - cannot even begin to provide a solution to the complex, stress-aggravated problems now facing almost all of humanity?
Are you seeing why Maharaj
abandoned entirely any and all religious and spiritual methods of trying to treat
the Ultimate Sickness and focused more on the psychologically-rooted problems
generated by the adulterated mind? Quite the challenge, yes?
Humanity’s stress today around mortgages as mentioned in the film - or around the millions of foreclosures that resulted from human greed in over-buying and from human greed from over-selling - had so many causes that the explanations in many cases are book length. Some causes involved persons who bought what they could not afford while other causes dealt with the avarice of investment bankers.
Discussions of the roots of
the stress that came as a result of being imprisoned in a Nazi-run work or
extermination camp because one was either a Jew or a gay or mentally-ill or
physically-deformed have filled volumes of books.
However, it has been seen that on some occasions - though rarely, true enough -
some have shifted their place in the hierarchy by abandoning their willingness
to tolerate any further abuse.
The result is a shift in the “quality”
of one’s relative existence by casting aside excessive tolerance of what should
not be tolerated at all.
Recall this from Louise Sterling, offered earlier after viewing the Sapolsky
documentary: “Perhaps this research will feed into a refusal amongst the
oppressed to put up with exploitation, abuse, narcissistic capitalism, the One
Percent, the lies, and the BS. Because it is LITERALLY killing them.”
As noted, the “refusal” is starting to happen in some quarters, even without an
awareness of Sapolsky’s research.
Miners in Africa are finally rebelling against owners who have been made
billionaires by miners who are working under the most dangerous and
debilitating conditions for pennies an hour. The workers are striking and being
shot by the police authorities who represent the rich owners, yet the protests
continue.
Workers at McDonald’s all around the globe struck to express their
discontentment. The “straw that broke that camel’s back” was a publication from
corporate headquarters providing “a budget plan for McDonald’s workers” which
did seem to show that they could live just fine on their McDonald’s salary. The
rub? An entry in the back of the plan that made an addition to their income
total that had to come from a second, full-time job.
Workers at the Walmart chain, owned by a family whose annual net income is
equal to the annual income of the bottom 41% of all people working in the U.S.,
are rebelling against the fact that one of the richest families on the planet
refuses to take slightly less in order to provide a decent income to those
workers who are making it possible for six people to have a net worth of $152
billion.
(If those six people live to their average U.S. life expectancy and if
they never earn another penny, they would have to spend $18,000,000.00 - that’s
18 million dollars - every day in order to deplete by the time of their “demise”
what they already have accumulated.)
Workers at Amazon around the globe are beginning to rebel against the
intolerable working conditions that the company has set in place.
Automobile manufacturing plants are being closet as workers strike. The same happened with workers in the entertainment industry. Workers are walking off the job at some Walgreen’s pharmacy stores. Health care workers have been on strike.
Some teacher unions in the U.S. are on strike as are workers employed by Mack Trucks. Some government workers in other nations are presently on strike. Religions are seeing more and more people give up on organized religion and reject the stresses that it puts on members.
There seems to be an
increasing number of people who endured the stress of the pandemic who are
saying, “The relative existence is too short to live under the heavy hand of
leaders in who are abusing their power and enriching the top 1% while treating
everyone else like serfs who were bound under the feudal system to work on
their lord’s estate and like it or leave it.
There is some “refusal” happening globally; however, 50% of all persons are
driven by their fear-based and loyalty-based Personality Type Six which drives
them to accept what should be unacceptable, whether that involves “personal
relationships” or “business relationships.”
Fifty percent of all persons
on the planet are therefore programming to find a caretaker and let him or her
take care of them, not matter the toll that caretaker’s abuse tasks on those below
the leaders in all of the hierarchies on the planet.
Tomorrow: More of Sapolsky’s revelations about stress inducers, stress effects,
and the ways that stress was reduced in the formerly-aggressive and formerly
angst-filled troop that he studied.
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.
