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.
OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF TOTAL FREEDOM
“ . . .You are afraid of freedom!”
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Realization is but the opposite of ignorance.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it.”
--Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj
“You want peace and harmony in the world, but refuse to have them in yourself.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
To expand on the connection
between being “preference-free” and being totally free, consider the state of
four men whose cases have been witnessed over the period of one month:
One is near suicidal because the woman he was living with left him when she
discovered that he was grooming another woman in the wings to move in if the
present live-in left. Why take such action?
“Because,” he said, “he does not
want to be alone.” (His persona’s preference for “company in prison” rather
than being “alone but free” - free of the misery of personality entrapment - is
driving his suffering.)
A second is miserable because his wife “used him and took his money before
leaving with a man even richer than he.” And even after finding out that she
had been involved in an ongoing relationship with the other man during the
marriage, and even after she admitted that she never cared a whit about him,
the husband is miserable that she left. Why?
Because he wants her to come
back, noting that “she is gorgeous.” (His personas have a preference for a
particular, outward appearance and how he thinks he was perceived when she was
on his arm.)
The circumstances with the other two men are similar, both also being “preference-bound”
rather than “preference-free” and being driven by the fear-and-desire-based
agendas of the personas which they want to maintain.
Those examples reveal further blockages to total freedom:
A. personality, for it is personality that is the source of all “preferences,” “desires,”
“wishes,” and “hopes.” To be driven by preferences is to be driven by personas,
roles, false identities, personality, ego-states, stage characters . . . call it what you will; and,
B. the prevailing delusion among the non-realized, namely, if something which
is a part of the relative existence, and which is thought to be “good,” and
which, therefore, has been desired . . .
if whatever that is happens to manifest (be that a relationship, a job, a
house, whatever), then the delusion is that it can be permanently set, can be
enduring, and will be unending.
What shift must happen in order for
(1) freedom from the disappointment and misery and frustration of finding time
and again that what is desired or “gained” will never be permanently set, will
never be enduring, and will never be unending; and
(2) what do the pointers here offer that allow a fixation in the bliss of THAT
to happen, even as the AM-ness continues?
Here is the way one visitor described the shift, starting with “where she was”
and then describing “where she is” and what is “different” as a result of
having completed the “journey” here:
“The early contacts with you raised the issue of feeling imprisoned by: the
demands of the teenager; the difficulties of single parenting; the day job; and
the non-realized state (especially glimpsing what was perceived as the blissful
state and then returning to imprisoned reality).
“The pointer you offered was: this is all occurring at the level of experience.
As you described in the Goldilocks Syndrome, there is no stability in manifest
consciousness which is always changing. To attempt to find stability there is
like building a house on sinking sand and expecting it to stand firm.
“To free me from this self-created imprisonment, the question you asked me is:
what is that changeless state, that is beyond these vagaries of good and bad,
stable and unstable, clarity and lack of clarity.”
“Maharaj would say: set up camp there. Until that pointer is grasped by the
seeker, the experience of duality and therefore instability will persist. Here,
the relative life details remain unchanged, but the view is entirely different.”
The “relative life details remain unchanged”? Yes, to the degree that the
relative challenges of raising a teenager as a single parent remain and to the
degree that some always-challenging employment must continue in order to
provide for the basic requirements of two people.
Might the relative details in some other instances change? Of course: with some
other seekers, there can be a movement away from chaotic relations, from
noisiness, from undue busy-ness, from generating crises, and / or from
developing an addiction to chaos because of overwhelming boredom.
But the Ultimate Sickness has a far firmer hold on the four men mentioned
earlier who, unlike some visitors here, have never even “glimpsed the blissful
state.”
And “the view is entirely different”? Yes. It is recalled that when former
co-host Louise moved from one cottage to another, she found that the view of
the lovely, peaceful, and even blissful garden was obscured because muck and
grime had accumulated for years on the glass of the window and blocked the view
of the garden from one of her rooms as a result of that buildup of
contaminants.
If you are willing to seek out guidance from a realized Nisargan, then you will
have found “A Window Cleaner,” so to speak. You will have found a speck of
consciousness which understands the muck and grime that obscures your view are
really the concepts and ideas and beliefs that are driving you;
that understands why you cannot possibly view the beauty and peace and bliss;
that understands how the muck and grime were set in place via years of
accumulated programming and conditioning and acculturation and domestication
and indoctrination and brainwashing;
that understands exactly why you
think what you think, say what you say, and do what you do (even as you believe
there is some “you” that is determining all of that); and that understands that
it is all of the “not-you’s” - all of the personalities that you have assumed
or that were cast upon you - that are driving all of your thoughts and words
and deeds.
That Nisargan not only understands the roots of the insanity and ignorance that
is driving the four men mentioned earlier, but also knows exactly how freedom
could come to them if they would but follow the multi-step “path” to total
freedom from the muck and grime;
from the inability to see
clearly; from the inability to shift beyond the flux and chaos of their relative
lives; from the ability to fixate in the only state where such fixation can
happen.
The fact is, though, that those four are exactly like all among the non-realized
masses: the only thing that they are more afraid of than freedom is total
freedom. So it is, but so it need not be. At this point, they have no option.
At this point, maybe you do.
All that persons are afraid of, they are afraid of because they take themselves
to be . . . persons. (Do you see the
trap, the conundrum, the “Catch-22” involved there?) That is to say, there can
be no fear unless there is first an assumed persona with an agenda.
The four mentioned earlier have no option at this point other than to pursue a
mirage, other than to try to defend a mirage, and other than to engage in the
futile effort of trying to convert that which is temporary into that which is
permanent. They may as well become alchemists and try to convert lead into
gold.
You, though, might be in a position where you understand that the
tried-and-true means by which total freedom can come is right here before you.
You might be standing at the fork in the road.
Shall you continue along the same
route and experience the same consequences, or is “the road that has not yet be
taken” calling you? Shall you continue to try to find stability at “the level
of experience,” or might you be ready to find stability at the level of reality
and Reality . . . at the level of the AM-ness and the THAT-ness.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
THE NEWEST OFFER
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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.
