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 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.
HOW RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL AND NON-DUAL MESSAGES HAVE BEEN WARPED BEYOND RECOGNITION
(The Conclusion)
“There’s no such thing as peace of mind.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“There’s no such thing as peace of mind. There’s only peace if you are out of your mind.”
--floyd
“Originally, every human was mindless.”
--floyd
FREEDOM
FROM THE MIND
In order to realize (that is, in order to cast aside all learned ignorance or insane beliefs) it must be understood that all of the things which one took himself / herself to be in the past - including any and all personalized and individualized ego-states, roles, selves, identities, stage characters, personas, personalities, etc. - were nothing more than misperceptions. Humans are nothing more than composite unities. One part is an elemental plant food body which is circulating conscious-energy (part two) and oxygen (part three). What happens when mahasamadhi is taken?
The elements return to the universal pool of elements; the conscious-energy moves into the universal pool of conscious-energy; and the air returns to the universal pool of air. End of composite unity. End of story. No judgments or
No Auschwitz-like selection process happening before pearly gates and streets of gold, no 20% pointed left to be sent in one direction, no 80% being pointed in the opposite direction and sent directly to the fires.
Specifically, to be free of all nonsensical beliefs, this must be seen: that which is nothing more than a composite of elements, breath, and conscious-energy was mistakenly assumed to be something “personal.”
Of
those three, which part could be considered “personal”? No part. Not the
elements. Not the breath. Not the conscious-energy.
Additionally, to be free of feeling offended or threatened or hurt, see that
none of those three could ever possibly take anything “personally” (or “persona-ly”).
Having transcended the I-Amness, in fact, no part of the composite unity can
know itself (some will prefer “ItSelf”) as “I am.” Even that Am-ness has been
left behind, having been recognized as just another concept to be discarded on
the final leg of the “path.”
Maharaj: “The ‘state’ of ‘beingness’ is clearly an incomplete, provisional
state of understanding. The sages and prophets recognized the sense of ‘being’
initially. Then they meditated and abided in it and finally transitioned it,
resulting in their “ultimate realization” with a total brain flush.
After the Final Understanding manifests, then abidance happens spontaneously,
not as the “I am” but as the Absolute Awareness - awareness that is not aware
of - and there is no registration even of the “I am” anymore.
There
is in the Absolute (or as the Absolute) no “one” to know or to recognize
beingness or Am-ness. Most assuredly, therefore, there is no “one” abiding in
the Nothingness (or as nothing . . . as no thing) which can register any sense
of “I Am.” All happens spontaneously with no sense that there is some “one”
making it happen or some “one” doing anything.
All of that was filtered out when the “veil” was passed through when the
movement from the illusory “here” and the misperceived “this” to the Reality of
the nothingness happened. Wherefore any sense of a “prior Me” if not even a
sense of a “present Me” is registering?
To speak of a “prior Me,” you must have missed hearing pointers about the
Presence and the composite unity in the post you referenced. Now, the invitation
is to consider both. Then the case with you can be the same as the case here:
the I-Amness state has been transcended, and You too can transcend the state if
you but understand.
Maharaj taught that the Presence (the I-Amness) should not even be here: “The
non-’I-Am-ness’ only can meet that nothingness.”
Does the deer sit in the cool blue shade and mentally repeat, “I Am, I Am, I Am”?
Practice that mantra in the early steps along the “path” in order to end once
and for all the habit of following “I am” with any personifying noun or
adjective, but at some point, please! Stop it. Stop the mental machinations and
sink into the bliss of nothingness.
If
consciousness is present, then there can be a sense of oneness; later, there’s
the noneness, only unmanifested energy / matter.
Maharaj advised seekers to move “up to the precipice of consciousness” and to
then fall “into the abysmal depth.” Everything experienced, he said, is
non-eternal. His invitation was to “experience” the eternal and to “experience”
the Void, even as it is understood that there is no “experiencer” at all.
Transcend the I-Amness and only then will you know total independence and total
freedom, and only with the manifestation of total independence and total
freedom can the complete bliss then manifest; yet even the bliss can only
happen now, not “later,” not post-manifestation. Bliss is now or never, and
bliss is only available consistently when abidance happens naturally.
To delusionally try to live “supernaturally” - in either a super-spiritual or
super-religious style which stops the movement along the “path” at the third
step - will actually result in living unnaturally (knelling, rising, pleading,
attending, chanting, dunking, sprinkling, burning this, ringing that, etc.).
Maharaj reflected on a visit to the loft by two college students and how he
advised them to “forget spirituality.” He invited them to follow “their normal
inclinations” - that is, their natural tendencies - and to “do your normal
duties” and “just give up spirituality.”
That advice was rooted in his own experience which had bogged him down. He was
trying to spare them years or decades of being similarly bogged down. He said:
“I got involved in spirituality, in the business of spirituality, [but] finally
I lost that love of ‘the Self’ also. I have no more love for ‘the Self’.”
[The
Self is as much a figment of persons’ imagination as the multiple selves - the many
false personality identities which are assigned or adopted.]
What an otherwise-warped manner of thinking, as if loving “the Self” is less
selfish and less self-centered than loving “the self” (or “selves”). To be
preoccupied with Self as opposed to being preoccupied with self still results
in preoccupation and in the busy-ness of occupation with Self.
Only those who . . .
. . . love the doingness of religion and
. . . love the going and the doing and
zooming involved with spiritual exercises and
. . . who are too bored to be able to sit quietly in the solitude and
. . . who unconsciously prefer chaos
over calm and
.
. . who find natural living to be “less noble” and
. . . who think that they require love from the masses or admiration from the
crowds in order to feel full inside
would take a busy religious life or a busy spiritual life over a simple,
relaxing, quiet, natural existence. And that option is not a “no-brainer.” It
is a “no-minder.”
Maharaj: “So long as one depends on the mind, the mind will always make one unhappy. What is suffering really? Suffering is only something which has been engendered by a thought or a word - [by] the mind.”
Nothingness. Mindlessness. Doing-less-ness. Ahhhh.
Peace. Unity. Love. Light.
To watch the most recent talk and Q&A with Walter and his guests, 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 and why learning more is not the answer and why unlearning is the answer, click:
