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.
IS
YOUR RELATIVE EXISTENCE HAPPENING AS IF YOU ARE DANCING LIGHTLY OR AS IF YOU
ARE DOING A STIFF, BOOT-STOMPING, GESTAPO-STYLE MARCH?
Attachments Prevent Lightness
A movie that was once currently a popular rental in the U.S. (called a popular “hire” in some other countries) is entitled “Love and Other Drugs.”
The word “drugs” is used in the title to reference the part of the film’s subject matter that deals with all of the emotion-based motion / actions which persons experience around fear-or-desire-driven attachments, including:
making
them far-too-hastily; avoiding them; fearing them; running away from them;
running to them; and - time after time - forming them only to break them . . . or
forming them and suffering the consequences instead of breaking them.
The pace at which persons form attachments is astonishing as they can shift out
of a formerly-peaceful state and enter at break-neck speed the mad race to find
something external that they hope will make them happy or bring relief from
whatever temporary obstacles they might be presently facing.
Some see the error of the way that they fell into during a time of fear or desire, so those will quickly break off the attachment after seeing that it is going to take a heavy toll and is going to block their former sense of lightness;
others
will tolerate for an entire “lifetime” the misery of an attachment that they
think is raising them to what they perceive to be the new heights of an
elevated lifestyle or the higher high provided by a drug or what they take to
be a drug-induced “higher level of consciousness.”
[Nowadays, the number of persons touting the latter is increasing, not unlike
those heady days in the 1970’s when a variety of drugs were being credited with
having “consciousness-elevating properties.”]
In “Love and Other Drugs,” a relationship without attachment sailed merrily
along; when one party began to attach, the relationship became rocky; when that
party began to detach, the other party suddenly processed the fear of
attachment and was ready to move forward.
Such
is the chaos that marks an existence that is caught up in the ever-changing
flux of attaching and detaching as a result of personality-driven fear and
desire. What is the answer?
Maharaj: “Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and
smoothly step into its own.”
For that to happen, there must first be an understanding of (a) the perverse
functioning of the “mind” and (b) the relative consequences that will manifest
in a “mind-driven-life”;
also,
there must be an understanding of (c) all of the false selves that rule from
the “mind” where such emotionally-intoxicating mirages are stored and thought
to be real.
Time and again the non-dual pointers remind seekers that they must know the
false selves before being able to know truth and authenticity. How can one
renounce toll-taking attachments if
(1)
such attachments are not seen or if
(2) the toll of such attachments is being denied or if
(3)
the toll is seen but justified by use of the many mechanisms that the
excuse-making “mind” will employ - often unconsciously - to rationalize what
amounts to senseless or even insane decisions?
Maharaj: “You cannot renounce. You may leave your home and give trouble to your
family, but attachments are in the mind and will not leave you until you know
your mind in and out. First thing first: know yourself. All else will come with
it.”
Recognize your self - your false selves which are the source of all fears and
desires - and then know that your concepts of “Self” (an “Infinite Self,” “a
Supreme Self,” etc.)
Maharaj: “Awareness is primordial; it is
the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without
parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a
surface, a state of duality.
“There can be no
consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without
consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is
relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is
partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it
is the common matrix of every experience.”
Questioner: “How does one go beyond consciousness into awareness?”
Maharaj: “Since it is awareness that
makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of
consciousness. Therefore the very consciousness of being conscious is already a
movement in awareness.
“Interest in your
stream of consciousness takes you to awareness. It is not a new state. It is at
once recognised as the original, basic existence, which is life itself, and
also love and joy.”
Questioner: “Since reality is all the time with us, what does self-realisation
consist of?”
Maharaj: “Realisation is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world as
real and [the real] as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know [THAT]
as the only Reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace
and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to
see them as they are.”
How to reach the non-dual understanding of simultaneously understanding that you
are all and that you are nothing, for to be free of the fears and desires of
personality, that must be understood? You must understand that you are all (a.k.a.,
Love) and understand that you are nothing (a.k.a., Wisdom).
Maharaj: “Being all, what am I to be
afraid of? Water is not afraid of water, nor fire of fire. Also I am not afraid
because I am nothing that can experience fear, or can be in danger. I have no
shape, nor name.
“It is attachment
to a name and shape that breeds fear. I am not attached. I am nothing, and
nothing is afraid of no thing. On the contrary, everything is afraid of the
Nothing, for when a thing touches Nothing, it becomes nothing. It is like a
bottomless well, whatever falls into it, disappears.”
Freedom from attachment must happen to be free of peace-robbing fears and
desires. Recall the pointer offered earlier: the light is omnipresent. The
seeming darkness notwithstanding, there is more light surrounding the moon than
is striking its surface.
Allow
the light to illuminate and to allow you to see how your fears and desires will
lead you to race into attachments and entanglements that will always eventually
take hostage both your freedom and peace.
Heavy, lightness-stealing consequences always follow those who race excessively
into attachments that at first appear to be lightness-providing opportunities.
Caught up in the storm of fear and desire, the selves convince themselves that
lies are truth; only the sane can differentiate between the true and the false.
Why abandon the only tool available for relative constructiveness and allow one’s
selves to drive you to self-destructiveness? If you find that you were moving
along the “path” and took a detour, return to the “path” so that, in the end,
You can come home . . . and stay.
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.
