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 for seekers and for seekers to become able to differentiate the true from the false.”
--Floyd
To continue,
consider this exchange with a seeker who was completing the Advaita Internet
Course and making clear that he was truly realizing:
F.: Who / what are you, really?
Anthony: There is no Who. Conscious energy manifested in a body of elements.
F.: Yes! A temporary, limited space exists because a plant food element / body
has formed; oxygen is circulating into it and out of it; there, energy has
manifested. That is all that is happening with “anthony” or “floyd” or anyBODY.
Understand that and then when ego and egotism appear, the only questions to
pause and ask are:
“Is the body offended?” NO. “The breath”? NO. “Energy”? NO. Go scream at the
energy at a wall outlet in the kitchen and see if it can be offended. It
cannot, so the only thing that can be offended (that is, supposedly “hurt or
interfered with or threatened”) is an illusory ego-state. So what happens when
the body (or “this life”) ends?
Anthony: Breath - returns to the universal pool of air. Elements - return to
the universal pool of elements. Consciousness - returns to the universal pool of conscious-energy.
It cannot be created or destroyed.
F.: End of that story, and the end of volumes of nonsense, yes?
For another, freedom did not come until she was freed of belief in “the trinity
of experiencing, the experiencer, and the experience.” Afterwards, for a
period, she might have identified with
(1) “The Pure Witness”; later, she would shift to identifying with
(2)
Pure Witnessing.
Even later, total freedom came when, for a period, she identified with
(3) The Nothingness before eventually
(4)
even that identification fell away and the remainder of the relative is now
unfolding in the nisarga fashion with the no-identity, no-concept, non-dual
Reality overlaid upon the relative.
May the message of that freedom beyond the level of experience come to you and
be understood by you.
Two
political leaders during the days of WWII, Truman and Churchill, made
statements that are apropos to this discussion: Harry Truman, nicknamed “Give ‘Em
Hell Harry,” said: “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they
think it’s hell.”
While the truth cannot be stated but can be known, it could be said that
Maharaj offered pointers that were spot on and people thought that hearing
spot-on pointers was hell. The same has happened here. Why? Because spot-on
pointers are similar to the fictional tales of “driving a wooden stake into the
heart of the proverbial vampire” in order to be rid of it:
similarly, what happens when a “realized guide” (a term used for the sake of
discussion only) strikes a blow at the false personas - which are assumed to be
real by persons - is either that
(1) the previously-blocked speck of consciousness can be free of the effects of believing in that which is false; or, as is more often the case, that
(2)
such persons think that they are “being given hell” or are hearing BS from some
nutjob, instead.
Why else such reactions when freedom-offering pointers are taken to be “offensive”
(when the fact is that only an ego-state can think it has been offended)?
Winston Churchill’s words also apply, specifically, when he spoke of “a
bodyguard of lies.”
For you, the term applies to the many bodyguards - to the many guardians of the
lies - that you have been told and applies to those who led the way in blocking
the speck of consciousness that You are via their use of lies that were
presented as unquestionable truths and applies to those who used lies to
program you and to condition you and to acculturate you and to domesticate you.
How offensive it is to “The Good Son” and “The Good Daughter” who believe the
egotistical message that they “turned out so well” that “their parents must
have done a pretty damn good job.” One need not carry a resentment against
those who passed on lies that they took to be truth;
however, if persons would be free, then they must be willing to see that the
persons, the ones who taught them what they know, were guardians of lies. They
must understand that the messages delivered by all those specks of blocked
consciousness that inspired them to use ego-defense mechanisms to support false
identities had no validity at all.
Offensive it is to the ego to admit that, among the guardians of the lies were:
parents and relatives, religious leaders and / or spiritual leaders; political
leaders; business leaders; and, in fact, their entire culture. “The Guardians
of Lies” can apply to all of the specks of blocked consciousness that are
functioning in all of the major fields of influence:
in many Western cultures, that especially includes church, state, and business;
in some other theocratic cultures, that applies mainly to religious leaders; in
some cultures, at certain times in their history, it applies mainly to the
moneymakers. Whatever the tendency of any given culture at any given time, the
Bodyguards of the Lies are robbing persons of their potential opportunity to be
free.
Among non-dual guides, the intent is to undo the effects of such robbery and to
guide seekers through a process of un-learning, a process which can thereafter
restore the state of freedom that has been stolen from all who take themselves
to be persons. Yet most do not want to abandon their belief in false roles or
in anything else they believe; thus, Maharaj’s pointer that “you are afraid of
freedom.”
Earlier, these words from a visitor to the loft were shared:
“You seem to say that there can be perceiving without a perceiver, knowing
without a knower, loving without a lover, acting without an actor.”
Exactly! That is the key to “living free,” that is, to abiding post-realization
in a totally free state. Yet the perceiver and the knower and the lover and the
actor seldom have any inclination at all to abandon their false roles. They do
not so much as even consider the fact that:
husbanding can happen without the assumption of the false identity of “The
Husband” which soon becomes upgraded to “The Super Husband” and which brings
with that assumption and upgrading untold misery and suffering;
wifing can happen without the assumption of the false identity of “The Wife”
which soon becomes upgraded to “The Super Wife” and which brings with that
assumption and upgrading untold misery and suffering;
and employing can happen without the assumption of the false identity of “The
Employer” which soon becomes upgraded to “The Super Employer” and which brings
with that assumption and upgrading untold misery and suffering.
If you can still be offended by any of the words of a non-dual guide that seem
to you to feel like a wooden stake being driven through your heart, and if you
think that the spot-on words of a guideare offensive, and if you believe that a
speck of pure consciousness that is pointing you toward truth is “giving you
hell” . . .
. . . then you are still assuming false
ego-states as identities that are being supported by ego-defense mechanisms;
you are still defending the Guardians of the Lies; and you are still vulnerable
to suffering from the emotional intoxication that is triggered when that to
which you remain attached is shown to be in error.
And the end result of all of that is this: you will continue to believe “their”
lies and will be afraid of being totally free. That need not be.
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.
