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.
FREEDOM FROM SHIFTING BETWEEN STATES OF HAPPINESS AND
UNHAPPINESS
“Be empty of all mental content, of all imagination and effort, and the very absence of obstacles will cause reality to rush in.”
--Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go of everything.”
--Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj
“A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.”
-Yeshu’a
Who can be blissful or even happy or even content if not free? The
answer is, No one.” With denial being one of the most-used ego-defense mechanisms
among humans, most have no clue regarding the totality of everything which is
robbing them of their freedom.
One of the most significant “robbers of freedom” is duality, specifically, the duality-based beliefs which generate the instability that guarantees nervousness and worry and concern and apprehension and fretfulness and angst and fear and anxiety and grief.
Hence, the pointer from Yeshu’a that “dual-minded persons are unstable in all ways.” Persons hate change but most have dozens of things in their lives that they would like changed right now. What is that about?
It is about the common-held belief among the non-realized that if they could just arrange everything in their lives exactly the way that they always dreamed it would be and if they could just get everything they want in place, all would be fine.
That distortion ignores this pointer from Maharaj: “Freedom is from something. What are you to be free from? Obviously, you must be free from the person (or personas) you take yourself to be, for it is the idea you have of yourself that keeps you in bondage.”
Thus he advised: “Give up all ideas (beliefs) about yourself and simply be.”
No
one else is stealing your happiness. You are giving it away. Some say that
happiness is an inside job completely. Tell that to the person being beaten regularly
by a partner, mate, or spouse.
Yet something or some things on the inside (beliefs stored in the mind) have lead to actions which lead in turn to persons having broken pickers which have then inspired them to make faulty decisions which have placed them in miserable circumstances which do need to be changed.
But now it’s the attachment to the agendas of false personality identifications which keep them involved with the misery-generating circumstances which their broken pickers got them into when they were convinced that a particular person or particular amount of money or job or political party or religion or spiritual movement was going to be able to solve their problems and make their lives grand.
When that proves not to be the case, then they finally consider changing; yet they usually do not choose to change what must be changed. If they are driven by faulty belief that their lives can be grand if they can find a different person, income level, job, political party, religion or spiritual movement, they will fail to find that which they seek.
What must change is the content of their minds. They need a total mind flush; they need to give up all beliefs; they need to find what is robbing them of stability and be rid of those destabilizing contents.
Again, “A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.”
Sometimes in the loft where ten to twenty seekers might gather twice a day, Maharaj would let only one speak and then he would use the rest of the session to address that person and the person’s comments or questions.
Here, I do the same. I share certain exchanges with a seeker and then allow site visitors to look over our shoulders and possibly hear something which they might need to hear at this point . . . or not.
During the early stages of her search, one exchange happened with “Louise from South Africa” who would eventually realize and become the co-host of this website. She would report years later on one particular series of our earliest talks that will be shared now. She referenced one series which she followed early on:
“I remember that series well. It was such a turning point (clearing point?) All of the relative life, there had been the attempt to stabilize as ‘good’, ‘spiritual’, ‘wise’, ‘abundant’, ‘happy’, etc. That series somehow enabled me to see how fixation on one half of a dualistic pair simply kept me trapped on the roller coaster. What a breakthrough! Thank you.”
The exchanges in that series of satsang sessions began
with her sharing the following:
Louise: There has been a temporary shift in the experience of consciousness expressing: very natural and easy experience - the mind quiet - with a kind of gentle ignoring of thoughts - through no effort on the part of a “louise” - who on investigation appeared quite empty - just experiencing without resistance - watching “louise” and experiencing what is happening without much involvement - and yet feeling vividly present in life happening at the same time. There is an absence of a memory stream from the past and no movement to plan a future - not so easy to explain in words.
Then suddenly - not even sure of the trigger - “louise” returns and is now able to reflect on past. It appears that there was a short period of stepping out of the mind-body-personality construct. This has left a view of a different experience of reality. What pointers do you have at this stage?
I am continuing to gently ignore the mind stream and using the “I am”. I am also reading certain texts which seem to break the solidity of the mind-body-personality. Are these spiritual practices I should abandon? They seem helpful - in fact they are my only connection with pure reality and help me feel sane. I would be very grateful for any additional insights.
Floyd: As usual, your comments provide an opportunity to offer some pointers that other seekers might also find relevant, relatively speaking. The first part of what you shared is an accurate description of what a taste of AS IF living is like.
As for additional insights, you can now sit down to the
full course in order to “feel full,” chewing the teachings thoroughly,
swallowing them in their entirety, digesting them during quiet contemplation,
and then just witnessing whatever follows, naturally and spontaneously, as it
happens.
In your commenting, you actually identify why you’ve only tasted the sweetness, why you have not become fixed firmly in the beingness, and why you are once again supposedly “experiencing” a “temporary shift.” What you (euphemistically) call a “different experience of reality” is actually “louise” shifting from the state of relaxation and beingness and peace to the notion that there is a “louise” and that “she” is “experiencing” no sense of relaxation, no sense of the mere beingness, and no sense of peace.
What is that which shifted you away from the peaceful state? It is some illusion of “the past” which you think you are “reflecting” upon. To say erroneously that there is a “louise” who is “experiencing” something other than the peace is really to say that “perceiving is happening from the position of one or more assumed identities rather than via the pure, universal consciousness.”
So how about you visitors reading this post today”? Might
any parts of that exchange apply in your case when it comes to ending
the constant shifting or to “being unstable in all ways?” Have you
found some things you must let go of if you would escape the cycles of
shifting?
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.