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.
“IF I WERE TO READ ONLY ONE POST ON THIS SITE, WHICH WOULD YOU RECOMMEND?” “THE MAY 10, 2024 POST.”
This series is attempting to provide an awareness of what the Ultimate Sickness involves and what the subsequent seeking of the Ultimate Medicine to treat the Sickness entails.
Today, I’m not going to abandon the scheduled postings but I am going to stop long enough to provide an overall view of non-duality and what this entire deal is all about. I apologize upfront for the unusual length of today’s considerations which are being offered after recent interactions and witnessing.
Maharaj had a visitor who expressed his concern for a friend who seemed to be grasping more and more of the non-dual understanding but was now “changing his ways.” He told Maharaj that he and his mates could hardly get his friend to engage in conversation at all.
He said he was talking less and less and the fellow was concerned if something “negative” was resulting from his coming to a new understanding.
Maharaj answered that his friend might well reach a stage where he enters into the silence completely and does not come out of it at all.
The man was shocked by what Maharaj was predicting about his friend. On what was Maharaj basing that forecast? Why might that happen? For at least two reasons:
If one grasps the non-dual understanding, there is a guarantee that belief in any ego-state, in any personal identification (either noumenal or phenomenal), has come to an end. What is the by-product of that?
The actor - no longer given free rent in the mind - has been evicted and, therefore, leaves the stage. No longer is an audience needed or sought. No longer is a spotlight desired.
No longer are any ego-defense mechanisms being used to support a host of false identities. In the absence of a belief in any “self” or “Self” or “WHO-ness, the formerly self-serving monologues and dialogues no longer happen.
The quietness comes spontaneously. The silence begins to prevail.
There
is no longer any of the former emotional intoxication which opened the door to
disharmony. The sounds and noise generated by the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness
(“ignorance, stupidity, and insanity,” per Maharaj) cannot penetrate the no-sounds
of silence. Debating, arguing, trying to convince others to believe what one believes,
criticizing, attacking, (and, yes, even defending) all stop.
So what does “the journey away from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness” - identified by Maharaj as “ignorance, stupidity and insanity” - provide when a seeker reaches the end of a “path” which results in a different perspective, in clear seeing, in freedom from false beliefs via the non-dual understanding, and in freedom from being driven by learned ignorance and insanity?
Well, understand first that there are what many call “The Five Basic Methods of Teaching Non-Duality,” occasionally paraphrasing Dennis Waite:
TEACHING METHOD: Pseudo Advaita Vedanta
Enough said. Total BS.
TEACHING METHOD: Traditional Advaita
This is the method regarded as the one defined by Shankara in his discussion of
the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Suttras around
the 8th century AD. This approach is defined by those scriptures which some
claim are the source of truth.
TEACHING METHOD: Neo-Vedanta
The term Neo-Vedanta refers primarily to the method used by
Vivekanada and his followers. Some critics consider this method a “watered down”
version of Traditional Advaita, a result of the fact that Vivekanada and his
followers tried to make the teachings more suitable to Western tastes
where concepts and ego-states have dominated persons for millennia. [NOTE:
Neo-Vedanta teachers typically employ seemingly sublime or flowery or exalted or
emotion-inspiring statements that encourage followers to adopt more concepts
and identities instead of encouraging seekers to forfeit all concepts and
identities. Some examples include such advise as: dream on an idea and be full
of it and you’ll succeed; believe in yourself; make yourself strong; find god
and gain power; use thoughts to create a new reality; engage in the noble goal
of seeking knowledge; you are responsible for what you are; acquire power; and
seek love. Such concepts are in direct opposition to the teachings presented
via the Direct Path, nisarga yoga approach.]
TEACHING METHOD: Neo-Advaita
The teachers / guides who use this method see no need for study, questioning or inquiring into anything. Recognizing only the reality, and knowing that there is no seeker, they conclude that there is nothing to seek and nothing to teach. Often, the result is that the most diligent seekers who try to attain the understanding with Neo-Advaita teachers can become very confused. Neo-Advaitins suggest that no path is required since there is no “one” to follow the “path.” “Nothing is real. See that and go away.”
TEACHING METHOD: Traditional Vedanta
This focuses on the concepts of the soul, known as atman, and its relationship with the Supreme God, known as Brahman.
TEACHING / GUIDANCE METHOD: The Direct
Path Method
The Direct Path provides a means by which belief in untruths is
removed.
The guides that use this method understand that once realization happens,
life carries on with itself, by itself, without any intervention required.
Beliefs must be deconstructed for realization to happen, and
realization is nothing more than rejecting belief in all of the learned ignorance
one has been taught.
Rather than seeking without (via god, gods, or “holy” writings) the
Direct Path Method emphasizes seeing directly that truth which can be understood
by looking within after eliminating the nonsense stored in “the mind” part of the brain.
After realization comes via an understanding of the pointers
offered by way of the Direct Path Method, the natural freedom of one’s true nature
prevails for the remainder of the manifestation. (Hence, the connection with the
nisarga yoga, or natural yoga, approach).
The Direct Path Method is not goal-oriented or prescriptive (as is
Neo-Vedanta, for example) and attempts to simply point out the way things are.
Often using present experiences as data or examples, the Direct Path
Method deconstructs the existing body of presumptions, the belief systems, and
the psychological structures - all of which make persons feel separate,
vulnerable, and cut off from reality.
When the illogical, unreasonable, and irrational nature of psychological structures are held up to the light of awareness for a seeker that is capable of being logical and reasonable and rational, the psychological structures peacefully dissolve.
Because most non-dual seekers have no clue about which method their gurus or “favorite teachers” use, then the stage is set for debate: “You’re full of it! That is nowhere near what non-duality is about.”
The non-dual transmission process then differs not at all from religious fighting with those outside the religions but also with those within the religion. That is how Christianity has ended up with 10,000 different denominations.
That’s why you can drive through a small town with a population of 1000 people and see signs on the way into town advertising dozens and dozens of churches which are affiliated with different denominations.
At some point, the Direct Path Method was adopted by more and more wise guides. Sages for ages, far longer than the few centuries since the elements of the non-dual understanding were codified, identified the key steps of the path back from insanity to sanity.
Maharaj on the premise at the journey’s beginning: “There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding.”
So the instructions for traveling the journey?
Maharaj:
“ . . . You should go back, reverse, to the source.”
“Follow the same path by which
you came.”
Originally,
Maharaj used a seven step path. In the end, he simplified that and used only
the first four steps on the path, saying, “That is enough. You need not spend
time and energy trying to find the answer to ‘Who am I’? You need but find who
/ what you are not.”
So, to see the reverse, let’s see the original path “coming in.”
We were in a Child Ignorance Stage or a Child No-Knowing State.” Then you were told, “You are a boy and you are a good boy when you do this and a bad boy when you do that. Same for every girl.”
Maharaj said: “After the information given to you by the mother, that you are a boy or girl, all your further acquisitions (false identities) are by hearsay.”
So on the way in, these were the steps:
Child No-Knowing / Totally Free of Beliefs / Zero Concepts Stage
Personality Identification
Mind / Beliefs Identification State
Body Identification State
So to reverse? Again, the age old instructions:
“ . . . You should go back, reverse, to the source”
and
“Follow the same path by which
you came.”
The “Going Back Steps,” therefore, involve #1 realizing that you are not the body.
I explain it like this:
THE FIRST DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY: Body Identification
“The
Arms-Legs-Organs” Considerations offered in the next paragraph can help people
become free of the limiting, false belief that they are the body. Of the
various self-concepts which block most humans from realizing who what we truly are,
body identification is the most basic and least sophisticated identity. Belief
that one is the body preempts engagement in finding truth. I offer the consideration now to you: If you were to lose your right arm,
would you still be you?
You would still be you, right, even without that arm? If you were to lose your left arm, would you still be you? You would still be you, even without that arm . . . correct?
If you were to lose your left leg, would you still be you? You would still be you, right, even without that leg? If you lose your other leg, wouldn’t you still be you? You would still be you, right, even without that leg? Would you still be you if you have a heart transplant? You would still be you, yes?
If you have a lung transplant, are you still you? You would still be you, right, even without your original lung or your original heart?
And
if you looked into your own eyes in a mirror, wouldn’t you still know that you
are you, even though your physical body is only a shadow of what it once was?
Then . . . who or what are you? WHO (or WHAT) answered “yes” to the earlier
questions during the exercise? Who or what you truly are must be something
beyond the physical body.
If
more than half of what most consider to be “you” were to be lost, what is that
you which remains? Moreover, what is that you that is sensing that you would
still be you, and would still be complete, even after the loss of four body
appendages and the replacement of two original organs? (For more, search composite unity on this website).
THE SECOND DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY: Mind / Beliefs Identification
The next step out of the miasma of blindness to reality is ending the identification with one’s mind / beliefs.
THE THIRD DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY: Personality Identification
The pointers from “a truly realized non-dual guide” focuses on the (relative) scourge of personality identification and the (relative) ills which are generated by personality identification and by the subsequent personality disorders.
For realization to happen, all personality must be cast aside. Were belief in false personality identifications to end, all personality disorders which mark the relative existence would end. But that will not happen.
Far too many have been programmed and conditioned (and far too many have had the consciousness blocked far too much) for any degree of logic and reason and sane conduct to manifest across the globe. Only a few will ever realize and be truly free of the effects of personality.
THE FOURTH STEP:
The Child Ignorance Stage” or “The Child No-Knowing State”
A child in “The Child Ignorance Stage” or “The Child No-Knowing State” and an adult that has returned to the “The Child Ignorance Stage” or “The Child No-Knowing State” both share all of this in common:
Neither has any beliefs, so neither believes in any of humankind’s dreamed up concepts and ideas and notions and warped perspectives.
Both - if the basic relative requirements of food, clothing and shelter are met - are capable of enjoying unconditional happiness.
[Among adults that have been programmed, conditioned, etc., their happiness is always conditional, and their near-endless catalog of supposed necessities and supposed requirements for happiness always involve far more than the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter.]
Neither a child in “The Child Ignorance Stage” or “The Child No-Knowing State” nor an adult that has returned to the “The Child Ignorance Stage” or “The Child No-Knowing State” experiences even the slightest degree of self-involvement. Both self-involvement and Self-involvement are impossible if no self / Self / persona / personality identifications are being assumed.
Both function in a zero concepts state.
Here
is a partial list of what Realization eliminates (which includes the traits and
behaviors of addicts as well):
1. Realization eliminates arrogance
2.
Realization eliminates the absence of empathy
3.
Realization eliminates the inability to understand that love in this relative
existence is only love if it is unconditional, unconditioned, and free of
self-centeredness
4.
Realization eliminates the inability to know and feel the unicity
5.
Realization eliminates envy
6.
Realization eliminates desires and fears that are based in the perceived needs
that are dreamed up by ego-states
7.
Realization eliminates identification with body-mind-personality
8.
Realization sometimes eliminates personality disorders by eliminating
personality identification
9.
Realization eliminates the adoption and defense of false images
10.
Realization eliminates all sense of separation
11.
Realization eliminates the assumption of ego-states, so it also eliminates the
use of ego-defense mechanisms and egotism as well
12.
Realization eliminates irritability, restlessness, and an otherwise
ever-present sense of emptiness and discontentment
13.
Realization eliminates attachment to conflict, destruction, judgmentalism, and
self-serving concepts
14.
Realization eliminates that sense of never truly being at ease
15.
Realization eliminates outbursts and raging
16.
Realization eliminates attachment to phoniness
17.
Realization eliminates desires for power that can be used to control
18.
Realization eliminates the drive to manipulate and use and/or abuse
19.
Realization eliminates delusions of grandeur and
20. Realization eliminates belief in the fanciful and eliminates magical thinking.
Might realization be for “you”?
A talk and Q&A session on Walter Driscoll's non-dual site provided an opportunity to see some totally artificial ego-states fighting for their (imagined) lives.
To watch that talk and Q&A, click:
Walter Driscoll and Floyd Henderson
To watch the interview when Walter and Floyd discussed the fact that the Ultimate Sickness is a mental / mind sickness
If someone asked,
“So of the thousands of posts you have provided on your site since 2005, if I were to read only one, which would you recommend?”
the reply would be:
“The May 10, 2024 post.”
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.
