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.
HOW RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL AND NON-DUAL MESSAGES HAVE BEEN WARPED BEYOND RECOGNITION
“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
EVERY HUMAN, HAVING THE ADDICTIVE PERSONALITY DISORDER TO ONE DEGREE OR ANOTHER, PROVES THAT ALL HUMANS ARE TRYING TO REACH THE ZERO CONCEPTS, NO-MIND STATE OF WHICH I SPEAK
(Continued from yesterday)
So what did Maharaj NOT say about the mind (and about the brain)?
WHAT MAHARAJ DID NOT SAY:
He did not say: “All illness begins in the brain.”
He did not say: “Your confusion is . . . in your brain.”
He did not say: “Whatever is conceived by the brain must be false, for it is bound to be relative and limited.”
He did not say: “Distrust your brain, and go beyond.”
Those are pointers he said about the mind.
FURTHERMORE, HE DID NOT SAY:
He did not say: “There is no chaos in the world except the chaos which your brain creates.”
He did not say: “ . . . The brain obscures and distorts.”
He did not say: “It is the brain that creates illusion.”
He did not say: “There is no such thing as peace of brain. Brain means disturbance. Restlessness itself is brain.”
He did not say: “Don't rely on your brain for liberation. It is the brain that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether.”
Those are also pointers he said about the mind.
NOR DID HE SAY:
He did not say: “Beyond the brain there is no suffering.”
He did not say: “Stop making use of your brain and see what happens.”
He did not say: “Learn to separate yourself from the image and the mirror. Keep on remembering: I am neither the brain nor its ideas.”
He did not say: “There is no such thing as brain. There are ideas . . . .”
He did not say: “Abandon the wrong ideas, for they are false and obstruct your vision . . . .”
He did not say: “The death of the brain is the birth of wisdom.”
Instead, those, too, are pointers he said about the mind.
ADDITIONALLY, HE DID NOT SAY:
He did not say: “To know that you are a prisoner of your brain - that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation - is the dawn of wisdom.”
He did not say: “I have no brain . . . .”
He did not say: Let the brain “Reach a state of zero-concepts.”
He did not say: “As to my brain, I have no such thing. There is consciousness in which everything happens.”
He did not say: “I am double dead: not only am I dead to my body, but to my brain, too.”
He did not say: “I find I have lost the brain irretrievably.”
Instead, all of the above he said about the mind (actually about the mind parts of the brain including parts of the hippocampus, the amygdala, the neocortex / the cerebral cortex, the basil ganglia and the cerebellum.)
Those parts - as is the case with other parts of the brain - have purposes in addition to storage functions and retrieval functions. Were that not the case, if all learned information (learned ignorance) were confined in one specific, independent, restricted part of the brain, it could be excised and discarded and thereby end the Ultimate Sickness in any human.
Yet that is not the case, so centuries have been spent trying to find or generate an effective version of the Ultimate Medicine. Maharaj, following his guru’s lead, tried a combo version of dogma + non-dual pointers;
Next, Maharaj following the influence of Western visitors, tried a combo version of spirituality + non-dual pointers.
He came to see that neither version offered an effective treatment. He saw that the medical community did not come up with a pill - just any old pill - and then give it to people suffering a host of illnesses and then see if it helped.
He saw that they research sicknesses and, find the symptom, research to find the causes, and then only come up with a treatment for each of those sicknesses. He set out to follow that plan.
He eventually came to see the common symptoms included in almost every case “ignorance and insanity.” He would see that many sufferers were also driven by “stupidity.”
NOTE: He did not say that those with the Ultimate Sickness are ignorant and stupid and insane humans. He said that humans reach a point where they are driven, usually subconsciously, by by those three factors.
So where is the seat of “ignorance, stupidity, insanity”; of things subconscious and unconscious; of personality disorders; and of motivators which control thoughts and words and actions? Those are all rooted in the mind. Eureka! He saw that the Ultimate Sickness centers in the mind and in the mind only.
That triggered a search on his part to find a new version of the Ultimate Medicine. He offered pointers which addressed the root aspects and symptoms and causes and effects. He saw the treatment working with those that followed the course of treatment.
So he stayed with that version until he took mahasamadhi.
It’s in the mind. Persons who have been fooled woke up that fact. They were fooled no more.
The Doobie Brothers sang a song entitled “What a Fool Believes.” There’s that understanding again. The problem of humankind involves beliefs . . . involves what fools believe.
One lyric says, “But what a fool believes, he sees.”
Foolishness self-fulfills. Believe foolishness and one will see foolishness everywhere and normalizes it. But what the fool believes is being seen just “seems to be.”
So the next line says, “No wise man [or woman] has the power to reason away what seems to be.”
Then the point is made that fools rationalize their foolish perspectives and insane beliefs, convincing themselves that their lives dominated by foolishness and insanity are “always better than nothing.”
I have worked with thousands of people, and I cannot give an exact total of the number of wives who justified staying with a man who beats the hell out of them but then
. . . keep letting those beaters back in their lives,
. . . refuse to file charges with law enforcement,
and
. . . refuse to hire a divorce lawyer and leave.
What a fool believes, indeed.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
To watch a 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
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