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.
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HOW
RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL AND NON-DUAL MESSAGES HAVE BEEN WARPED BEYOND
RECOGNITION
You have no choice, only the illusion of it.
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“This is the function of the Guru is to make us see the madness of our daily living. Life makes you conscious, but the teacher makes you aware” [of having been fooled’].”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“There is nothing to seek and find . . . .”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Give up all and you gain all.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“You have accumulated knowledge and experience; this cannot be denied. But of what use is it all to you?”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
THE REQUIREMENT FOR CLEANING
(continued)
So why did Maharaj abandon the use of a religious / non-dual version of the Ultimate Medicine? If beliefs which were added have caused the Sickness, then what possible good can it do to add more beliefs, especially beliefs about thousands of gods and goddesses?
Or beliefs about a god who supposedly loves you unconditionally but who will also cast you into the fires of a hell where you will suffer for eternity?
Of beliefs about a dictator named Xenu from another planet who, some 75 million years ago, supposedly brought billions of his people to earth, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them with hydrogen bombs. A religion was founded on that piece of nonsensical fiction which tells people that the immortal spirits of these aliens now adhere to humans and are the cause of all “spiritual harm”?
And what sense does it make to tell persons who might otherwise abide naturally that they should abide unnaturally or supernaturally and should abandon their identities (except they should also find their “Supreme or Infinite Identity”)?
And what sense does it make to tell people that they should join a religion based in a tale about a prophet named Moron - sorry, Moroni - who buried a history of his people written on “gold plates”; that as an angel, he visited 17-year-old Joseph Smith in his bedroom;
that he told Smith where the plates were buried (just 3 miles south of where Smith lived); and that Smith was granted the right to marry as many women as he should choose (up to 33 and possibly as many as 48);
that
(as in the ancient Jewish writings) “dark skin is a sign of god’s curse but
white skin a sign of god’s blessing” (a notion
that shooter Dylann Roof and many in his culture believe); that “Native
Americans are descendants of ancient Israelites;
that
Jesus visited the Native Americans after he was crucified; and that women
cannot enter heaven unless married to a Mormon man who gives them a secret name
which they’ll need in order for their husband to be able to pull them through a
slit in a veil and into heaven.
Need more examples? Pick any “faith” and study its teachings and you’ll find all the examples you need of the fact that what religions add do not eliminate - but actually contribute to - the propensity of global “ignorance and stupidity and insanity.”
So Maharaj gave up any and every notion that dogma can be a
component of the Ultimate Medicine.
(The most revealing information which offers Maharaj's most open and frank and
totally unrestricted views on a wide variety of topics come by way of his words
which were never published.
His uncensored words as reported by friends and acquaintances, words which he shared with them in the form of off-the-record remarks, are his most candid. Uncensored? Some were censored? Yes.
His translators and editors culled out many of his comments and did not allow them to be published, including the profanities he occasionally used to pepper his talks and to emphasize certain points.
Regarding Maharaj’s take on religion, he said: "First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and . . . you pray to that God for something good to happen to you."
Additionally,
Maharaj's take on religion can be seen in this account - received from a site
visitor who had access to the comments shared by a man whose flat Maharaj had
once visited - is quite revealing:
The man visited by Maharaj: "He came into my flat and looked at all
of the pictures of gods and deities which I had framed and which I was
displaying on my walls and on tables. He looked at them and then said the
following":
Maharaj: "Very nice, but don't you think that tomorrow you should
collect them all and put them into the sea?!")
Next, why did Maharaj begin advising people to stop reading “I AM THAT” and to “give up spirituality”? Spirituality also adds. It does not remove all ideas and notions and concepts (a.k.a., beliefs) but increases the number of beliefs / blockages.
Third, why did he abandon Self-Inquiry and begin telling people that what is understood via “self-inquiry” is enough (namely, understanding all that you are not, even if you never come to know “Who You Are” or find the "Supreme Self”)? That all involves more addition when total subtraction is called for.
See, within all, there is that original sense of the Oneness. By adding concepts / beliefs, that sense is covered up or blocked - via programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination - and replaced with a false sense of different-from-ment and better-than-ment.
It is the latter which allows an ignorance-and-prejudice-spreading culture to produce a fellow like Dylann Roof who will walk into a church and shot nine people because they have “dark skin.”
If it is blockages and concepts and beliefs which are at the root of the Sickness, then the last thing anyone with the Sickness needs is the addition of more blockages and concepts and beliefs.
Of the nine basic personality types, it is the Type Four that has a propensity for questioning; for accepting nothing that is based only in "blind faith”;
for rebelling against the nonsense in one’s culture; for casting aside the imposed blockages; and for eliminating the blockages which - once discarded - allow the original sense of the unicity to return to awareness.
Those who are not Type Fours can come to understand those characteristics, characteristics which are required for full realization.
Maharaj had that propensity. That propensity was here at the young age of 5 or 6 (and that questioning and refusal to believe lead to the corporal punishment administered most Sundays from a father who was incensed that I would question the teachings which Ms. Myrtle was trying to teach in Sunday School).
And Mary Elizabeth Frye had that innate understanding as well. No one had to lead her through Self-Inquiry or religious teachings or spiritual exercises in order for her to write the following after a woman during the years of WWII shared that the Nazis had killed her Jewish mother and after the woman expressed how upset she was that she’d never be able to go to her mother’s grave and weep, her mother’s body having been dumped in a mass grave.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
And all have that Type Four personality within, to one degree or another. All with a normally-functioning brain have within that “inner resource” or that “inner guru” which can be accessed to work around the blockages and to tap once again into the inkling of the original truth that was sensed but that has since been blocked.
That does not require the addition of more dogma; that does not require that all sorts of spiritual exercises be completed on a daily basis; that does not - according to Maharaj - require finding “the SELF” or “the Supreme Self.”
To the contrary, it requires de-accumulation; it requires being rid of all concepts and beliefs and reaching a state of zero concepts; it requires being un-taught; it requires un-learning. It does not require re-programming but calls for de-programming.
All of the early religious and / or spiritual methods Maharaj tried in conjunction with a non-dual blend, he abandoned. Why? They all add more. They all encourage accumulation. And they add more - not less - when it should be clear that it is less that is required in order to treat the Ultimate Sickness.
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.
