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.)
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OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF TOTAL FREEDOM
“ . . .You are afraid of freedom!”
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Realization
is but the opposite of ignorance.”
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Yesterday ended with:
Last, most will never seek total freedom because they are attached to their false identities associated with the body or the “mind” or the personality / personalities.
Attached to the false as they are and attached as they are to the illusory concepts of “longevity” and “continuity,” they will desire to have - and will fear not having - just one more year of this manifestation, or at least one more month, or even one more week, or even one more day, or even ten more seconds:
“Just keep everything hooked up, Doc, so you can give me
ten more seconds. Don’t anyone pull the plug.”And when the plug is pulled or
when the consciousness unmanifests naturally or by accident, one will likely
hear such platitudes as: “He truly loved life” or “She died doing what she
loved” or “He lived a good, full life” or “She died before her time.”
But what will not be said is: “She / He reached a state of total freedom and,
post-realization, did abide to the end of the manifestation without attachment
or desire or fear or delusion or belief in false ideas and concepts or
ignorance or insanity or any of the host of personality disorders that drive
the masses.”
Maharaj would ask now: “What are you not willing to let go of?”
Here, you are asked, “How free do you want to be, especially knowing that
freedom comes in only one type or form or variety, namely, the total variety?”
To continue to look at the topic of freedom by using some of the definitions
offered in a variety of dictionaries:
DEFINING FREEDOM - CONVENTIONAL SOURCES (cont.)
k. “freedom” is independence; or, the ability to do at
will whatever is done rather than to have do something against your will.
Independence and freedom - and the lack thereof - can be discussed on a global
level or on a “personal” level. In either case, independence and freedom are
mostly myth. Look at today’s headline alone to find how often independence and
freedom are stripped away from people around the globe:
GLOBAL NEWS HEADLINES:
“Sex crimes in Sweden are decreasing but such crimes are still rampant”
“A fugitive Rwandan clergyman wanted for his role in the 1994 genocide has been
arrested in Uganda. He led a group that sought out and killed Tutsis in the
genocide. Some 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered in 100 days, many of them
brutally bludgeoned or sliced open with machetes.”
“The death toll climbed to 50 on Friday after a pair of suicide bombers
detonated their explosive vests at one of Pakistan’s holiest shrines, police
said. An additional 200 people were injured in the blasts outside the Data
Darbar, a famous Sufi shrine complex.”
“A Sydney court on Friday sentenced an Australian Catholic priest to almost 20
years for sexually abusing two dozen boys over two decades, the official news agency
said.”
“Clashes between hard-line Islamists and government forces killed six people
and wounded 19 in Mogadishu on Friday as violence gripped the Somali capital
for a third consecutive day.”
“The June death toll for NATO-led forces in Afghanistan reached 101 on
Wednesday, the highest ever in a single month since the war began almost nine
years ago.”
Consider this exchange regarding the message behind those headlines:
Questioner: “The war is on. What is your attitude to it?”
Maharaj: “In some place or other, in some form or other,
the war is always on. Was there a time when there was no war?”
Of such circumstances, Maharaj said: “Those who abhor war must get war out of
their system. Without peaceful people, how can you have peace in the world? As long
as people are as they are, the world must be as it is.”
Visitors here know that every personality type had a basic desire and a basic
fear that subconsciously drive thoughts and words and actions. There is a
direct link between personality and fighting. Maharaj said: “Between desire and
fear anger arises, with anger hatred, with hatred passion for destruction. War
is hatred in action, organised and equipped with all the instruments of death.”
So independence and freedom are more often a pipe dream around the globe rather
than anything that has actually manifested, but what impact can you have on any
battles that are (as with all battles) man-made?
A Visitor to the Loft: “Look at the wars, the exploitation, the cruel strife
between the citizen and the state.”
Maharaj’s answer was also that all of that is “man-made.” And all of that is
far easier to make than to un-make, which is impossible. A U.S. president
wanted to make war against Iraq and used bogus intelligence reports to justify
it. The Congress went along, but many years later, the persona-based war he
made had certainly not been un-made.
Next, consider the “headlines” that would apply far more often to “persons”
(that is, to the non-realized who are driven by their false identities).
Maharaj said that people don’t really mind so much the wars that happen far
away from them, among people they do not know; what persons really do not like
are the wars next door or the ones that involve them directly.
Yet, as always, he brought the argument “back home”: “From the moment you were
conceived you started a war with your environment.”
Those “local” wars are the ones that have the greatest impact on the non-realized
masses and are the ones that persons can be free of if they complete, in their
exact order, the steps to full realization. So consider the headlines that
apply to those “local” or “personal” wars:
“LOCAL” / “PERSONAL” NEWS HEADLINES:
“Woman stays with abusive male ‘for the children’.”(Afraid to pay the price of being freed from him.)
“Employees cringe as sociopathic boss approaches.”(Afraid to pay the price of being freed from him or her.)
“Priest re-located to five different parishes as church officials covered up
his sex crimes for twenty years - hundreds of children molested as their
parents looked the other way and continued to place money in church’s
collection basket. Thousands of church members remain in denial, support the
priest and blame local authorities.” (Afraid to pay the price of being freed from their religion and losing the supposed benefits of having power / a Power.)
“Link discovered between employment and violence in the home: wives of soldiers
and policemen are more likely to be beaten by their spouses than are the wives
of husbands in any other profession, but most of those wives remain loyal and
silent.” (Afraid to pay the price of being freed from him or her.)
“Suicides on the increase among those losing their job and their homes during
this extended recession.”
“Postal worker who lost job returns to job site, kills postmaster and wounds five
others” and “Fired employee returns to workplace, kills store manager and
wounds five fellow employees.”
“Driver cuts off another car on the freeway, shot by offended man in the car
that had to stop abruptly.”
Consider the personas involved in those “wars”: “The Fearful One”; “The One Who
Will Tolerate Anything for a Certain Lifestyle”; “The Employee”; “The Super
Catholic Who Will Blindly Support Priests While Ignoring Fact”; “The Homeowner”;
and “The Egomaniac Who Better Be Shown Proper Respect.”
Maharaj noted that persons who think they are in the world will of course be
trapped in the nonsense and ignorance and fighting that are associated with the
“world” and the non-realized. He said: “A man who moves with the earth will
necessarily experience days and nights. He who stays with the sun will know no
darkness.”
He spoke of the non-realized as “complex beings, at war within and without.”
But again came a statement from him that supports the thesis of this discussion,
namely, that most are afraid of total freedom and really are not interested in
it at all because it would require the abandonment of all false identities, of
all ego-states, and all egotism.
He said: “Were you really at war with your ego, you would have put many more
questions. You are short of questions because you are not really interested. At
present you are moved by the pleasure-pain principle which is the ego.
“You are going along with the ego, you are not fighting
it. You are not even aware how totally you are swayed by personal
considerations. A man should always revolt against himself, for the ego, like a
crooked mirror, narrows down and distorts. It is the worst of all the tyrants,
it dominates you absolutely.”
So the answer? Consider:
Questioner: “I find that the various aspects of myself are at war between
themselves and there is no peace in me. Where are freedom and courage, wisdom
and compassion? My actions merely increase the chasm in which I exist.”
Maharaj: “It is all so, because you take yourself to be somebody, or something.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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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.
