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
“A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways.”
-Yeshu’a
“Self-identification with the body-mind is the poison that brings bondage.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“The dissolution of personality is followed always by a sense of great relief, as if a heavy burden has fallen off.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Addressing “The Big Four”: The Sources of Instability and Being Unstable Mentally
(Continued)
The words of a former co-host on this site, Louise of Cape Town, South Africa, often described a style of functioning which any sane and reasonable human would choose while traveling along the “path” to full realization and while traveling through the remainder of the relative existence.
The problem: for the non-realized masses, choice is not an option.
Humans’ thoughts lead to their words, and their words lead to their actions. Where is there any chance at all - when unconscious and subconscious thoughts and words - control humans’ action? There is no chance.
The explanation I’ve used for decades is this:
Take choice to point to the presence of alternatives as opposed to the no-choice available to the non-realized masses.
Pavlov’s dogs were totally warped, made to behave unnaturally. Dogs normally salivate when they smell meat that they are about to be served. But when conditioned to salivate when they hear the bell on a metronome, they behave insanely and unnaturally.
They salivate when hearing a bell but smelling nothing. They have been made abnormal. They no longer can choose what they do and what they do not do.
The same happens with humans who have been conditioned programmed, acculturated, domesticated, brainwashed and indoctrinated: they too behave unnaturally and insanely. Why?
Because programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing and indoctrination drive and control all thoughts - and therefore - all words and actions.
Like Pavlov’s dogs, persons who have been conditioned, programmed, etc. have no alternative but to react in the way that their conditioning, programming, etc., dictate.
No choice happens when personas are assumed as identities or when imaginary ego-states blindly determine what persons do (even as they believe that they are the authors of their existence and even as they believe they are do-ers).
Conditioning, programming, etc., block and cancel any and all alternatives and assure that persons will be blindly and unconsciously and subconsciously driven.
The example I’ve offered for decades is this:
Consider how traveling in a car compares to being driven through life: if a person is being driven, in a car, then there are three places in the car where that person can be and one place where that person cannot be.
The three places where a person being driven can be are in the passenger seat, in the back seat, or locked in the trunk / the boot. The one place the person cannot be is behind the steering wheel. Why? Because it was not said that “the person is driving himself”; it was said that “the person is being driven.”
What is the result? The person being driven has no choice about where the car goes, how fast or slow the car goes, how safely or dangerously the car goes, or whether the car continues along the road or veers off the road and into a ditch or over the side of a cliff.
And that describes the lifestyle of persons who are conditioned, programmed, etc. They will live an unstable existence, sometimes moving quickly and sometimes not feeling like moving at all;
they will sometimes abide safely but will sometimes abide dangerously; they will sometimes travel in a sane fashion and other times they will drive recklessly and wreck everything.
The masses who are conditioned, programmed, etc., to allow the hidden agendas of each of their false, personal identifications (especially the agendas of desire and fear) will not be driven by making conscious choices.
They will not operate under the auspices of the neocortex (which is responsible for objective and / or rational understanding). To the contrary, with the neocortex having been bypassed, sidestepped, and disengaged, that is robbing them of abiding in a natural and easy manner;
robbing them of being able to be quiet; rendering them unable to ignore irrational thoughts; robbing them of the ability to abide effortlessly and without resistance; and robbing them of the ability to witness without involvement.
Instead, they will be driven by the subconscious agenda of the basal ganglia (which is in charge of driving humankind’s most primal instincts) and by the limbic system (which is in charge of triggering emotions and assuring that they will abide constantly in a state of emotional intoxication).
The result: non-realized humans have no ability to be objective, to witness purely, to perceive accurately, or to avoid being driven by their emotions as they abide in the unstable fashion of one who is emotionally intoxicated.
So a major relative existence problem is that conditioning, programming, etc. remove choice as an option because they drive persons to operate blindly on “auto pilot.” If you could merely choose between that mode and the mode that followed, of course you would choose the mode described above.
But note this, Louise: because you were able to live in that AS IF style for a
time shows that (a) it can happen and that (b) it can also happen with other
seekers and that (C) it can happen with you again.
Louise once asked: “How can these ‘shifts’ stop and how can I fixate in a
natural and peaceful fashion of AS IF living for the remainder of the
manifestation?”
The consideration: Look to certain of your own words for the key to the answer:
“natural and easy experience”:
The use of experience reveals vestiges of identification with the body-mind-personality triad. The consciousness is what is at this point. It can ONLY witness (or “watch” as you said). It cannot experience. I experience nothing. I do witness all.
“the mind quiet”:
There is the second clue to explain the shifts from a state of happiness to a
state of unhappiness. Understand that the “mind” has nothing to do with the
consciousness. As has been noted in some of my books, “Consciousness is rooted
in the Absolute. The brain is rooted in the elements. The ‘mind’ is rooted in
wrong programming and faulty conditioning and lies and concepts and ideas and
superstitions and falsehoods.”
Consider
the point offered in the title of one of those books for its message might
provide a relevant pointer for this part of your “journey”: THERE IS NO SUCH
THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your Mind.)
“with a kind of gentle ignoring of thoughts”:
If you truly come to an understanding of what the “mind” is, and if you truly
see the detriment to peace that it is, you would abandon it like an abusive
mate, yet conditioning and programming and the influence of “the mind” can
prevent persons from abandoning that which is abusive. Your “thoughts” are a
major abuser that you must abandon if the “shifts” between states of happiness
and unhappiness are to end.
“just experiencing without resistance - watching 'louise' and experiencing what
is happening without much involvement”:
Again, that word “experiencing.” Do you now see what “the mind” is telling you?
It is telling you that there is “someone” who is experiencing things. You are
the consciousness which can witness. Peace happened when you “watched.” Peace
ended when you began to “do” again, thinking dualistically that there is some “do-er”
or “experiencer” of “negative” experiences who is wanting “positive”
experiences. See the duality there?
There is no “you” to experience what “the mind” is telling you that you are experiencing. You are, but you are not experiencing. Understand that and the misery-generating wanting and desiring will end, along with the misery-generating fear that you won't ever have what you want. I want nothing, can own nothing, can gain nothing, and can lose nothing.
A
person can sign a contract and think he / she “has” a house. A judge with the
stroke of a gavel can make very clear what an illusion it is to think that you
own that home! But how could a quantity of energy, which is what the
consciousness is, “have” or “own” or “lose” or “gain” anything? It cannot, and
understanding that pointer can bring about an end to the happiness /
unhappiness “shifts.”
“absence of a memory stream from the past”:
Again, you’ve embedded the answer to your own question. The shift you describe
is rooted in “memory,” in the notion that (1) in the past you had something you
desired but do not have it now and so you feel as if something is missing or
(2) in the past you had a shot at attaining something but failed or (3)
something in your past was so much better than what is now in your “present”
(or what is not now in your present).
All memories are distortions, triggering unreasonable desires or misconceived
fears. Illusions from the past are upgraded by the impure consciousness, so
persons now deemed to be “missing from your life” are idealized by “the mind”
into something far greater than was the case; or, memories of past offenses are
exaggerated and assigned far greater significance than is the case. All
memories are much ado about the nothing that they are.
Earlier, a pointer from a realized guide was mentioned: “A dual-minded person
is unstable in all ways.” If it is stability that you want, then
dual-mindedness must go. That means your belief is duality must go and your
belief in the validity of “your mind” must go.
If you would stabilize, then you must abide as the Absolute. Meaning? Meaning
that the blockages which prevent the consciousness from seeing Reality and truth
must be completely removed so that the consciousness can once again function in
its pre-manifested, no concept, non-dual “condition.”
That will remove those “problematic” delusions such as thoughts, experiences, and memories and will fix you firmly in touch with the stable, non-shifting Reality.”
To be continued.
Please
enter into the silence of contemplation.
THE NEWEST OFFER
If interested, click the button below to pay the fee via PayPal. You will then receive an email which includes the link for you to view the private, unlisted video via an arrangement we have made with YouTube, Inc. You do not have to have a YouTube account to watch this privately streamed video.
(If you do not receive the link promptly, your computer or email provider may have high filter settings. Check your spam and trash folders because some providers automatically transfer emails containing links to those folders.)
To access the seven-hour streaming video of a retreat and begin watching right away, click this "Buy Now" button:
In addition to the five non-duality books made available without charge by Andy Gugar, Jr. (see “FREEBIES” above), you can now access nearly 3,300 posts for any topics of interest to you.
If you prefer PAPERBACK copies
(collected in two anthologies).
Links for ordering are below with
BARNES and NOBLE presently providing better service
than AMAZON
when it come to fulfilling orders for
paperback and hardcover books
as opposed to delivering digital books.
[NOTE: Wherever you live, you can search for the books below by title with booksellers in your country. With 40,000+ retailers distributing my paperback books, you may order from U.S. stores or you may find someone nearer to you.]
SEND A GIFT BOOK TO SOMEONE
(1) 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.
Or,
(2) To make an arrangement for us to send in your name as a gift from you any of our books to someone you choose:
(a) Visit www.floydhenderson.com.
(b) Purchase the ebook you’d like to send.
(c) Contact us using the email below, tell us which ebook you just purchased, and provide the name and email address of the person you want to send the ebook to. (They will never be contacted again or solicited for any reason.)
Send your information to:
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.
