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.
IN TERMS OF “REALIZATION” AS A NON-DUAL PROCESS, THE MATH AIN’T MATHING
“The math ain’t mathing.”
Taraji P. Henson
“You do not need to allow yourself to be taught more; you do not need to work more and more in order to learn more and more; you do not need to add to the body of nonsense and BS which ‘they’ passed on to you via conditioning and programming. You need less of everything, not more of anything. What you need to do is subtract, not add. You need to un-learn; you need to be un-taught.”
--floyd
Ruby Bridges: “Racism is a grown-up disease. Let’s stop using our kids to spread it.”
Floyd: “The same applies to all that grown-ups add when forming the minds of
kids, including hate, racism, xenophobia, white supremacy, Christian
nationalism, beliefs about ‘different from’ and therefore ‘better-than,’ and
(per Maharaj) ‘ignorance, stupidity, and insanity’.”
“Go
forth, unburdened with ideas and beliefs.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
. . . “Go home, take charge of your father’s business, look after your parents in their old age. Marry the girl who is waiting for you; be loyal, be simple, be humble. Hide your virtue, live silently.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“ . . . Question wisely. You will find you know nothing for sure - you trust on hearsay.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“A little learning can be a dangerous thing.”
--Alexander Pope
“Anything short of total un-learning is a far-more-dangerous thing, relatively speaking.”
--floyd
“For the supposedly realized to deny the AM-ness is just as delusional as it is for the non-realized to identify solely with the Am-ness.”
--floyd
Living is life’s only purpose.
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
THE KNOWLEDGE / WISDOM CONUNDRUM
As a child I loved spending weeks, and sometimes months at a time, with my Cherokee Grandmother. Her small cabin in the East Texas woods was a place that allowed for exploration.
In the attic, I once found a collection of “first printing” Hardy Boys books and under the two beds I found hundreds of Mason and Ball jars which Grandmother has used to can / preserve the produce from her field adjacent to the cabin.
(She had a huge smokehouse where hams, bacon, sausages, venison, and other beef and pork products were preserved, but the fresh-grown produce from her field was “put up” in jars.)
Usually from late May to mid-July she and I spent many mornings harvesting crops; some of the food we gathered was used that day, prepared for lunch or dinner; as for any extras, I assisted Grandmother with the canning process to save those.
The jars under her beds contained tomatoes, purple hull peas, cream peas (my favorite) okra, turnips (“No thanks, Grandma”), potatoes, corn, and more.
Family members who visited during the winter holidays were rewarded with scores of jars of preserved food to take back home.
When I consider the Knowledge / Wisdom conundrum, I recall those jars with produce placed inside and the certain juices or water added before sealing the jars.
What would have happened if the jars had been filled with water or juice and then the produce was added? Consider a quart jar filled with a liquid and then imagine if I had begun to add potatoes. With the addition of each potato, water would overflow from the jar.
Such is the case with the human mind which is pumped full of concepts, ideas, notions, etc., a.k.a., “beliefs,” a.k.a., “learned ignorance” or “human knowledge.”)
Wisdom has to do with intuitive and natural insight, intuitive and natural clear-sightedness, clear and intuitive and natural perspectives, clear and intuitive and natural discernment, clear and intuitive and natural reason, clear and intuitive and natural logic, and the sanity which all of those bring.
What did Maharaj have to say about human knowledge (a.k.a., “learned ignorance”) vs. wisdom? He said:
“I found myself desiring and knowing less and less, until I could say in utter astonishment: 'I know nothing, I want nothing.' Earlier I was sure of so many things; now I am sure of nothing. But I feel I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all my knowledge is ignorance, that 'I do not know' is the only true statement. I do not claim to know what you do not know. In fact, I know much less than you do.”
Consider the human brain to be a Mason jar. Consider that the jar originally held clean and clear water. Consider there were originally no computer-like parts which could store and retrieve information / “knowledge.” Those parts came later as the human brain evolved from its original 1-cup size to its present 3.5-cup size.
As more and more knowledge / “learned ignorance” was taught, it was stored, and then passed down to subsequent generations and presented as if there were “a body of facts” rather than a collection of hearsay and / or foolishness and / or lies and / or nonsense and / or stupidity and / or idiocy or any of the other things which are the opposite of wisdom.
How was it passed down? Via the use of specific tools, namely, programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing, and indoctrination.
Those all involve ignorance which is passed down by adults in the home, in the culture, and in religious institutions, in the military, via politics, and via businesses which make false claims about products in order to entice the masses to give them sums of money that are far out of line with any actual worth of any given product.
Whatever is passed down as knowledge (learned ignorance) is transferred by the use of programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing, and indoctrination.
Once a mind is pumped chock full of unnatural and “supernatural” (spiritual / other-worldly) knowledge, the mind is like a jar of water becoming chock full and overflowing with so much of what Maharaj called, “ignorance, stupidity and insanity” that there is no room for any wisdom to be present or to be introduced and received.
It's all backwards now, not unlike filling a jar with water and then trying to shove a load of potatoes inside. What a mess results. The same applies with being taught and learning: it's all backwards and messy.
By example, Grandmother filled the Mason and Ball jars with solid produce and then filled the jar with an appropriate liquid afterwards. No spill. No mess.
By contrast, fill the mind parts of the brain with hearsay and / or foolishness and / or lies and / or nonsense and / or stupidity and / or idiocy, then there will be no room whatsoever to add in even the slightest quantity of wisdom.
It’s an all-or-nothing situation: there is room in the human brain for wisdom, or there is room in the mind parts of the brain for belief in hearsay and / or foolishness and / or lies and / or nonsense and / or stupidity and / or idiocy.
Now, to use Maharaj’s often-repeated, “Simple, huh?”
So he said, “There is no such thing as a mind” and “I have no mind . . . .” and “I find I have lost the mind irretrievably.”
How to be free of it?
Toss out all that has been added and which has left the mind to overflowing
with hearsay and / or
foolishness and / or lies and / or nonsense and / or stupidity and / or idiocy.
Once all of that so-called “unnatural” and “supernatural” and magical thinking garbage has been eliminated and flushed, wisdom can flourish, along with . . .
intuitive and natural insight, intuitive and natural clear-sightedness, clear and intuitive and natural perspectives, clear and intuitive and natural discernment, clear and intuitive and natural reason, clear and intuitive and natural logic, and the sanity which all of those bring.
Moreover, Maharaj made clear that “Living is life’s only purpose.”
Not to gain knowledge? No. Not to know it all? No. Not to become “The Most Religious Person” and “The Biggest Expert of Dogma” in one’s community? No. Not to become “A Spiritual Giant”? No.
Living is automatically and spontaneously about the preservation of the species. Archetypes are passed along genetically and otherwise to that end.
To abide naturally - rather than unnaturally or supernaturally - one will address the natural call of the basic instincts and drives and address the drive to satisfy one’s thirst, logically and wisely; the drive to satisfy one’s hunger, logically and wisely; and the drive to satisfy one’s sex drive, logically and wisely.
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.
