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.
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HOW RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL AND NON-DUAL MESSAGES HAVE BEEN WARPED BEYOND RECOGNITION
Many cultures from early on program children to develop the habit of magical thinking. Many religions and cultures teach children to believe in miracles. Many children are taught to think in a duality-magical thinking manner, believing that that there is a man living at the North Pole who spends 364 a year making toys - but only for “good” children - and that reindeer can fly and pull his sleigh and visit billions of home in a 24-hour period to distribute the reward of present to those “good” kids.
And even when classmates begin to tell some of their friends that “you’re suspicions are spot on because there is no Santa Claus and it’s all one big lie and a bunch of BS, those children do not want to confront their lying parents about that news for fear it might cut off the flow of presents.
As adults, how many of those will apply that same illogical, magical thinking and believe that they must not confront an abusive spouse for fear of cutting off the flow of cash or the perks of housing, food, etc.?
Of the various permutations and mutation of the non-dual understanding which are presently being circulated, my decades of seeking only uncovered one system which addressed the need to abandon magical thinking, irrational thinking, illogical thinking and the foolish and insane and absurd belief systems which control thinking (and therefore also control words and actions).
Here, the method which I found which seemed most likely to lead to realization (that is, to the end of magical thinking based in learned ignorance) seemed to require one more component when I studied the various forms of yoga used in combination with several of the methods. Of all the versions of yoga I studied, I felt that the nisarga yoga made more sense than most.
Once I settled on those two, the investigation and searching came to an abrupt end because Maharaj was the name which came up time and again when I searched the direct path / nisarga yoga combo.
Yet after multiple reading of I AM THAT, some parts clicked but many did not. It was after a clarifying vision came when I found his later talks, when he advised seekers to stop reading that book and pay attention to his later talks, that the flood gate opened and washed away the decades of nonsense which had been believed and stored in the mind part of my brain.
See what happened there? The search for a method and a guide came about via conscious intention, not by letting parents decide what venue I (or you) should spend your life in while searching. You can go about this process without settling for the religious or spiritual venue which your parents took you to.
You are an adult now. It is time to set aside childish beliefs, childish magical thinking, and spending one’s adulthood blindly doing what adult programmers told you to do when you were a child.
Then, as I searched for a guide that used the direct path method combined with the nisarga yoga and read certain early pointers from Maharaj that he seemed to be contradictory. That happened because he was offering level-appropriate pointers to visitors . . . pointers which were based in “where” a seeker was on “the path.”
Because visitors did not show up and ask questions in order, then the pointers
offered were not arranged in a Step One to Step Seven order (which would later be modified to a Four Step plan).
Going to his later talks, I found why Maharaj finally started offering a non-spiritual
message to visitors.
1. He finally realized that the main problem with humanity centers in the
mind.
2 He finally realized that the mind is the source of all thinking - which
produces the incessant, endless grinding and churning between the ears - that (in turn) generates all human misery and suffering and emotional
intoxication.
3. Because he saw that seekers should be encouraged to reach the no-mind,
zero-concept, thinking-free state since that state prevents all magical
thinking as well - which is all that supernatural thinking (a.k.a., religious
thinking and / or spiritual thinking) amounts to.
4. And because his own observations with seekers who came his way led him to
predict that only 1 in 100,000 would realize, revised later to 1 in 1,000,000
and revised later to 1 in 10,000,000. His own experience with them and his own
observations made clear that the spiritual approach was not leading to realization.
Add to that the fact that at the end he was offering a purer version of the
Nisarga Yoga which recommends natural living over unnatural (religious) living
and over supernatural (spiritual) living. Once natural living manifests, one
lives in the same manner as all things natural: without religious beliefs or
identities and without spiritual beliefs or identities.
Thus, he said to two visitors, “Forget spirituality.”
He encouraged seekers to follow “their normal inclinations,” that is, to follow
their natural tendencies, to abandon all of their spiritual work and just abide
naturally - not unnaturally and not supernaturally (i.e., neither “religiously”
nor “spiritually” nor “philosophically” nor “ideologically”).
He told visitors, “Do your normal duties” and “just give up spirituality.”
Again, to move beyond the misery and suffering that are the effects of the
Ultimate Sickness (one symptom of which is magical thinking and the nonsense
which that generates) requires that one must move beyond the influence of the
content of the mind.
The problems of humanity are centered in the mind; the mind generates unnatural
and supernatural (magical) thinking; so to be sane and logical and at peace,
then being influenced by the content of the mind (that is, beliefs) must be
transcended.
While the realized non-duality guide would ultimately lead the seeker to
Reality - to full realization - that is not the “end goal” if the Nisarga Yoga
is also understood. Maharaj’s advice to “forget spirituality” and to “do your
normal duties” and to “just give up spirituality” are also invitations to be
free of magical thinking, to get in touch with Reality, but to then also
overlay on the relative the understanding that Reality provides in order to not
only be in touch with Reality but also to be in touch with “reality”; that
is, to be totally awake to the AM-ness and totally awake to THAT as well.
Some have countered, “That is so totally ignorant, Floyd. Do you not understand
the teaching that ‘nothing is real’?” Regulars on this site know the response
given to one woman who teaches that non-fact:
If you are certain that is the case, then test your claim. Count off fifteen
paces from a brick wall, turn and face the wall, bend until your upper torso is
parallel with the ground and the top of your head is aimed at the wall, begin
running towards the wall as fast as you can, and ram your head into the wall as
hard as you can. When you come to, you can then report whether the brick wall
is real or not.
To the contrary of the claim by some teachers that “nothing is real,” the
actual fact is that everything is real. It is just that nothing is as it “appears”
to be. Place a brick from the wall under an electron microscope and you’ll
observe a swirling mass of subatomic particles.
To be in touch with Reality is not to be removed from “reality.” (The entire
summative statement of non-duality is “I AM THAT; I AM,” not just “I AM THAT.”)
The manifestation (including the relative, the “real,” the Am-ness) continues
post-realization, but when Reality is overlaid on the relative (on the “reality,”
on the “real” that marks the post-realization) then the relative existence
continues in a manner which is marked by being sane and logical and rational and
in touch with the six senses and the intuitive awareness via the inner
resource.
No longer is there any unnatural thinking or supernatural thinking or religious
thinking or spiritual thinking or any thinking at all. A no-mind,
zero-concepts, no-beliefs state is reached.
In the absence of belief in all of the concepts and ideas and notions and dogma
and spiritual principles and thoughts and perceptions and delusions and
illusions and theories and hypotheses and views that had formerly filled the
mind and made it the place where humanity’s problem centers, an end will come
to the distorted thoughts that were based in the mind’s collection of distorted
beliefs.
Then, too, all ego-state-and-egotism-based talking will end. There will be no “one”
left to assume a super religious identity or a super spiritual identity. Until
then, those false identities with inspire magical thinking which inspires
magical talking (that is, to use a term Maharaj used but that was edited from
the transcripts of his talks: “BS”). As current examples:
Magical thinking example #1:
In the news is an account of a claim made by a woman (who happens to be on a
national book tour in the U.S., promoting the sale of the book in which she
writes a detailed account of what she said was a “near-death” experience in
2009).
According to her tale, she ended up in heaven for a few minutes where she “saw
and smelled God.” Magical thinking. First, nothing has been created, so there
is no Creator; secondly, that which is not born cannot die; third, if there
were a perfect and pure God, is it likely that “He” (to use her gender-specific
word) would be emitting an odor and that “He” would allow people to smell him?
Similar tales by others also claim to have “died, seen God, talked to ‘Him,’
and then returned to life,” but this woman takes it a step further and “smelled
God” too.
[Since the nation she is touring deems itself to be “the greatest Christian
nation on earth,” you may have just got a whiff of something else . . . like
maybe . . . “a best seller.”]
Magical thinking example 2:
Some time back, an athlete who broke his leg during a basketball game exhibited
magical thinking in a press conference when he declared that “prayer helped me.”
Of course, assumptions and claims about religious and spiritual “benefits” are based in bias and the
drawing of nonsensical conclusions.
That player’s claim could only be proved if
an experiment had been conducted that tested how long it took the leg to heal
with prayer vs. how long it took the leg to heal without prayer.
For that to be known, the leg would have to be allowed to heal in combination
with prayer. Then, the leg would have to be re-broken - in the exact same
manner and degree as the original break - and then allowed to heal without any
use of prayer. Then one could prove if “prayer” helped or not, and that proof
would be based in scientific fact rather than in nonsensical, talking-in-one’s-sleep
BS.
With the results of that experiment available, then the athlete could present
facts to the public rather than ego-state-inspired talk that has no basis in
fact. As it is, he does not know if prayer helped or not, but he did accomplish
what his ego-states and egotism wanted to accomplish: he reinforced his public
image as “The One With Faith,” “The Good Christian,” “The Super Religious One”
and / or “The Spiritual Giant.”
To be invited to “forget spirituality” and to “do your normal duties” and to “just
give up spirituality” is really an invitation to wake up; to stop talking in
your sleep; to spot nonsense when you hear it (especially if you’re hearing it
from your own mouth); to transcend the personality trance that all are lulled
into via programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing
and indoctrination; to “get Real”; and to also “get real.”
Finally, it can be understood why Maharaj was the least visited of all of the
gurus in India during his satsang days: he reinforced no religious or spiritual
ego-states, he gave visitors nothing, and he, instead, took away everything
(that is, everything dreamed up, imagined, believed in, assumed as an identity,
etc.)
Same here.
That approach will get you some low traffic, but high traffic was not being sought
there and is not being sought here. On the other hand, the few, truly earnest
seekers were welcomed into that loft back then and are welcomed into this
electronic loft now.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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
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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.
