OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF TOTAL FREEDOM

 

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

“Insanity is universal. Sanity is rare. Yet there is hope, because the moment we perceive our insanity, we are on the way to sanity. This is the function of the Guru - to make us see the madness of our daily living. Life makes you conscious, but the teacher makes you aware.”

--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“It is impossible to state the truth. It is possible to point the way to the truth.”

--Floyd

After nearly 35 years of sharing non-dual pointers and being asked time and again why so few ever realize, why so few ever “get it,” I have seen that the pointers which are most often challenged, objected to, or ignored completely are those which deal with . . . beliefs.

When called upon by Maharaj to reach a state of “zero concepts,” that notion is so far removed from what has been embedded in the mind-parts of their brain via nonsensical-and-ignorance-based programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination that the suggestion is anathema to most humans.

Thus that suggestion can be rejected instantly; however, to understand why his no-beliefs solution is the key to realization, review from yesterday what the true function of a non-dual guide is:

1. To address the fact that “insanity is universal and that sanity is rare” and

2. to address “the madness of our daily living” and

3. to move seekers away from being driven by the “learned ignorance, stupidity, and insanity” which had been taught via nonsensical-and-ignorance-based programming, conditioning, etc. and

4. to lead seekers to realization which is simply a state in which no beliefs are any longer held and

5. to move the seeker away from dual-mindedness which results in “being unstable in all ways” and

6. to shift seekers away from chaos and to stability,

well, what is the common problem which  all of those share? 

They all involve the mind-parts of the brain. Yet when seekers hear that the prerequisite for being totally free of all of those common problems, they move on, seeking a more comfortable, only supposedly non-dual, message. They do not want to be totally free.

As a child, my dad would occasionally take me to the circus. I hated it. It was a hotbed of animal abuse where the animals had been conditioned to accept a totally unnatural and abusive manner of living. 

I remember looking at an elephant that had a chain attached to one rear ankle and then to a stake driven into the ground.

I had seen the power of elephants, charging at trucks loaded with tourists and flipping the truck over and then tossing the former occupants into the air. I wondered why, when the restless animals in the circus tried to move away from the stake, the slightest tug on the chain stopped their efforts.

It would be explained to me that the circus elephants has been conditioned not to resist, which is exactly the case with humans. 

During conditioning, a chain and a large pole firmly planted deeply into the ground were able to hold back the animal, and if the elephant tried to apply pressure and escape, he would be beaten. 

Soon, the elephant came to believe, “I cannot escape, and if I even try, I’ll suffer,” so the slightest pressure from a stake in the ground at the circus - though incapable of physically restraining the  elephant - was mentally capable of restraining the  elephant.

So it is with humankind.

Throughout a thirty-five year period, I have had visitors showing up and being simultaneously conscious but totally unaware. The example I offered to many involved a trashcan full of garbage inside a house which contained five-day-old fish scraps and shrimp shells and crab remains and other shellfish waste and cat litter.

Then I asked, what would be the sane way to address the stinky content in the trash can: (a) take each bit and piece and spray it was an air freshener and return it to its place in the can; or (b) toss out the entire trash bag and be done with it all. Many thought the answer was so obvious that my metaphor itself was stupid.

At that point, I would suggest that they are using approach “a” and trying to address separately each and every individual problem which centers in the mind (which includes personality disorders and neuroses and psychoses and nonsensical ideas and views and thoughts and images and notions and opinions and theories, etc. and which can be bundled together and accurately labeled “beliefs”).

The conclusion: they cannot live long enough to “work on each individual mental problem” but have available a far simpler and far easier method available. As with the trash, don’t try to address each bit and piece that is generating a toxic odor; 

instead, toss out the bag in one fell swoop and be instantly done with the garbage and the odor.It will bring to end that which is stinking up their lives.

So many think that solution is impossible because they define “themselves” (their scores of false identities) with their beliefs about each false self.

When seekers concluded instantly that “That’s impossible!” I did not argue. I said simply, “You may be right” (meaning, you may be, but actually, you’re totally in error, based in my own experience).

And how egotism stands in the way! I could say, “Insanity is universal and sanity is rare,” and most would say, “Damn straight! I spend my every day dealing with crazy people,” but they are unaware that they are not running into craziness but are hauling craziness about themselves in the space between their ears.

Maharaj: “You are too quick to condemn. Do not worry about others. Deal with your own mind first” 

and 

“Make straight your hooks and nothing can hold you.”

So consider:

It is the mind which is a storehouse for body and mind and personality identifications.

It is the mind which is a storehouse for dualistic and, therefore, bogus ideas and concepts and notions and misperceptions (a.k.a., “beliefs”) which generate instability and chaos and misery and suffering.

It is the mind which is a storehouse of the ignorant and insane beliefs which were planted therein by ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing and indoctrination.

It is the mind which is a storehouse of all which imprisons persons.

[John Milton said, “The mind . . . in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven” and Richard Lovelace said, “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.” So what did he identify as that which does make a prison? The mind, packed chock full of false identifications and false beliefs.]

It is the mind which is a storehouse to all which results in a false sense of different-from-ment which - in turn - always leads to a subsequent sense of better-than-ment.

It is the mind, being the storehouse of beliefs about different-from-ment and better-than-ment, which leads to a false sense of separation which then sets the stage for arguments, nonsensical disagreements, fighting, conflict, killing, wars, chaos, pain, misery, and suffering.

It is the mind which is a storehouse of learned ignorance, personality disorders, and the neuroses and psychoses which can follow as personality disorders disintegrate into a state of severe psychic unhealthiness.

At every step, the long and arduous “path” which was followed here for decades involved dealing with persons who were all determined to use their dogma or exercises or beliefs or methods to add more to the mind, touting the need for more dogma, more spiritual exercises, more philosophy, more ideology, more (but different) beliefs, ad infinitum.

The long and arduous search ended when it became clear that (1) all of the stuff in the mind was the actual source of every problem, the mind being the origin of every problem; and that (2) the solution did indeed call for de-accumulation . . . that is, called for entering into a process of being un-taught all of it, called for entering into a process of un-learning it all; 

and called for casting aside all of the nonsense which had been added to and stored in a part of the brain which would be called “the mind” and which would lead to decades of ignorant and nonsensical and insane actions which led to massive levels of misery and suffering that did not end until the mind came to an end.

How to end the mind, the entire content of which can all be summarized with the term, “one’s beliefs”?

Abandon all beliefs. No beliefs? No mind. No mind? No stone walls. No stone walls? Freedom.

As has been noted here, each belief, each assumed persona, and each scrap of learned ignorance which is all stored in the mind . . . each of those becomes one of the many bars which are used to form the prison of the mind.

Want to be freed from prison? Cut away the bars of beliefs; the bars of identifications (or some “Special Identification”); and the bars of taught and learned ignorance.

Only then can you be free of dualistic thinking, and only free of dualistic thinking can you be truly free, and only if truly free can you be happy or at least content. (As Maharaj said, “It really is simple,” yes?)

It is the ever-churning mind which sets the stage for DID to manifest and to begin controlling every thought, every word, and every deed.

Maharaj’s own experience allowed him to explain how he tossed all the garbage / mind-garbage at once and what the result was after that:

“There is no such thing as a mind.”

“I have no mind . . . .”

Want to be free of the mind? Maharaj advised:

“Reach a state of zero-concepts.”

“As to my mind, I have no such thing. There is consciousness in which everything happens.”

“I am double dead: not only am I dead to my body, but to my mind, too.”

“I find I have lost the mind irretrievably.”

And that is what “total freedom” involves.

To be continued.

Please enter into the silence of contemplation.

THE NEWEST OFFER

Watch an updated seven-hour streaming video of a retreat with Floyd Henderson which can be viewed by anyone with internet access. (In this video, all seven of the steps on "the path" as taught by Maharaj are explained and discussed.

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:

 

 

 [NOTE: The four most recent posts are below. You may access all of the posts in this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]

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.

PAPERBACK VERSIONS OF SOME OF HENDERSON'S NON-DUALITY BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE.

If you prefer PAPERBACK copies

of some of Henderson’s non-duality books,

10 of his books are available in PRINT FORM
(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:

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.

THE EXPLANATION

If looked at as nouns, they point to illusions and are, therefore, a total waste of time to even discuss; if looked at as verbs which are resulting in certain sane but rare behaviors among humanity, then they are worthy of some attention during the relative existence.

Meaning? There are members of certain groups who say things such as "My concept of god in the past was of a weak god, an absentee god, A Santa Claus-type god, a mean, punishing, vindictive god, etc. Today, I am in close contact with a loving and caring god whom I worship and praise and glorify and give thanks to."

The reply to that usually goes like this: "If you are in contact with a god that wants to be worshipped and praised and glorified, then you're dealing with someone like yourself - a narcissist - and hanging out with narcissists will never bring an end to your narcissism (that narcissism evidenced by the fact that you think you are "godly").

Next, in the phrase 'loving and caring god,' any supposed god that truly had her or his act together would tell you that the totally irrelevant part of that phrase is 'god' and that the only part that is relevant is the "loving and caring" part.

"That is, a non-narcissistic their god / their goddess would say, "I care not an iota about being worshipped and praised and glorified by you or anyone else. How arrogant and insecure and needy would I have to be to want that? Forget the man-made, dreamed up noun 'god' and focus on the 'god as a verb' understanding and then go forth and let loving and caring be verbs - not adjectives - and let them generate the act of love and the act of caring and let those actions manifest through you." 

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"

--Yeshu'a (Jesus)

and 

"Heaven and earth shall fade away."

--Yeshu'a (Jesus)

and 

"Heaven and hell are not geographic places

but are states of mind, nothing more than

concepts dreamed up by men."

--Pope John Paul II 

"There is no hell."

--Pope Francis, the current pope

in an interview with journalist Eugenio Scalfari,

a writer used by the Pope to issue off the record

teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium.

[That said, would that the popes who have shown the courage to reject a core concept of their dogma - namely, "hell" - would find the additional courage required to question the very existence of their institution in light of the centuries-long cover-up of their history of raping children and in light of the mental and emotional and psychological scarring of billions of their members past and present.

And that need for courage also applies as questions need to be asked about why so many other sky cults are still being supported and allowed to continue to exist as well. When certain types of programming and conditioning have been shown to blind the masses, they should end. Will they? Not likely. Why?

Because what the masses think and say and do is most influenced by the international crime families which hold sway over the masses as criminals conduct their planet-wide operations. What are the major international crime families and which are the most influential and have the largest memberships?

The Mafia / La Cosa Nostra; the Catholic Church (with it 1.2 billion followers) whose Vatican Bank worked for decades with the Mafia while laundering mob earnings (for a 15% all-profit charge by the Bank); Protestant and Evangelical Churches (with over 1.2 billion followers) like the one I was raised in where the youth director molested and sexually assaulted young girls; big business which has long created environments in which people have been abused; powerful political bodies like the U.S. Congress, etc., etc., etc.)

With all of those crime families, neither the followers nor the leadership ever voluntarily step down or shut down their criminal activities. Be they gangs, organized crime families, religions, big business, politicians, etc., they all want control and they all want power and they all want money, and nothing internal will interfere with the driving forces at play.

The masses must demand that all those in charge must step down and their groups and institutions must shut down, and there's the real problem because the continuation of their crimes are enabled not as much by the people running such crime organizations as they are enabled by the masses of people who - wanting some perceived "payoff" - remain involved with them and give them money and support them and aid and abet the continued existence of those criminal enterprises and thus facilitate the ability of church criminals and political criminals and other types of criminals to continue to commit their crimes.] 

Here's

the direct link to the VIDEO VERSION 

of the "Awakening Together" satsang session with Regina and Jacqueline referenced earlier, 

18 MARCH 2018

or

You can click on the picture link which has now been added for video "Number Ten" in the upper right-hand column on this page.

If preferred, here's the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION. 

You may click

here 

to visit Floyd's bookstore.