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. Also, by clicking on NUMBER FOURTEEN," visitors can also see the introductory discussion on non-duality on Walter's non-duality site and then a Q and A session which followed.]
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?
6. 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.
ARE YOU AT THE WET CHARCOAL STAGE OR THE GUNPOWDER STAGE?
(Most haven’t a clue and must be told)
THE CURSE OF HUMANKINDS’ RELATIVE EXISTENCE: IDENTIFICATIONS
“The personality is but a product of imagination. ‘The self’ is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking of yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is ‘the self’ that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it.”
“Beyond the self lies the unmanifested, the causeless cause of everything. Even to talk of ‘re-uniting the person with the self’ is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.”
--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Maharaj was not the most popular messenger or courier of non-dual pointers in Bombay, not as well-heard-of as many other “gurus.”
On an international level, he was hardly heard of at all until a collection of his talks were published in a book entitled I AM THAT which - as was the case with his pointers offered during satsang - contained mainly Hindu-based information to draw the locals to his loft and later “spirituality-based” information to placate the international visitors who were seeking something that they took to be “spiritual.”
When he shifted away from those two topics and began offering psychological, mind-based pointers during his last years, he advised seekers to stop reading the transcripts of talks in I AM THAT.
He said: “That book and whatever was expounded at that time was only relevant for that period. I am speaking differently today” and am “emphasizing different aspects.”
What he offered later differed considerably from his earlier talks, making clear that the pointers in I AM THAT will take you to the midpoint of “the race” but that his final talks point the way to “the finish line.”
Some ask why so much attention
is paid to personality by non-dualists and why the nine enneagram personality
styles are discussed here. A simple understanding of the results of being driven
by the unconscious and hidden motivators rooted in personality should make
clear the answer.
Because personality develops early on, a sense of self (and, eventually,
selves) blocks the awareness of the unicity, blocks peace, blocks happiness,
and blocks sanity.
If non-dual pointers are to lead to realization and to an ability to
differentiate the true from the false, then they must first eliminate that
which blocks the “path” namely, a false sense of self and selves . . . a sense
that personality / personalities are real . . . a sense that personas
are of some benefit rather than one of the forces which generate chaos
throughout the relative existence.
Per the Direct Path Method offered here, the final personality-purging-process
happens at the third step on the “journey” from the belief in false “I” or
“I's” to an awareness of the nonsense which has been learned and calls for
elimination of the same.
It is at the third step where
all false but supposedly "really good” identities must be eliminated -
including the roles of “The Religious One,” “The Spiritual Giant,” and even
“The Super Seeker.”
“Liberation” refers to the process by which persons are liberated from the
effects of false personas which, in turn, liberates them from the
desires and fears which are rooted in personality and which produce so much
relative chaos.
Which personality types have been driving you? To what degree? Do you even
know? In what order should they be focused on to remove the most detrimental
blockers of seeing truth and then allow functioning to happen throughout the
relative existence with stability rather than instability?
While Dissociate Identity Disorder (DID) is universal, there are other personality types which also generate
specific desires and fears. Each type adversely impacts your relative existence
and contributes to your misery and suffering. What personality disorders are
manifesting alongside the DID which drives your thoughts and words and actions?
Do you even know?
Because personality sets the stage for the manifestation of personality
disorders, if personality disorders are not recognized and diagnosed, then more
relative instability and chaos are assured.
To know the degree to which each of the nine basic personality types are
showing up is to have an opportunity to know which personality disorders might
also be manifesting and driving chaotic thoughts and words and deeds.
To review:
The link between type - and
the types of disorders that often manifest with each type - include the
following:
In Personality Type Ones, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
** the Depressive Personality Disorder
In Personality Type Twos, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Histrionic Personality Disorder
** the Factitious Personality Disorder
In Personality Type Threes, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Narcissistic Personality Disorder
** the God-Complex Personality Disorder
** the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
In Personality Type Fours, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Narcissistic Personality Disorder
** the Depressive Personality Disorder
** the Avoidant Personality Disorder
** the Cyclothymic Personality Disorder
[Note: The form of narcissism experienced by the Type Three differs from the
narcissism which shows up with Type Fours: the Three's narcissism drives the
person to focus in an outward manner, seeking admiration and applause from
crowds while behaving as an extrovert; the form of narcissism experienced by
the Type Four drives the Four inward into self-focus and self-absorption as an
introvert]
In Personality Type Fives, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Schizoid Avoidant Personality Disorder
** the Schizotypal Personality Disorder
In Personality Type Sixes, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder
** the Paranoid Personality Disorder
** the Dependent Personality Disorder
** the Paranoid Personality Disorder
In Personality Type Sevens, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Manic-Depressive (Bi-Polar) Personality Disorder
** the Histrionic Personality Disorder
** the Addictive Personality Disorder
In Personality Type Eights, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Antisocial Personality Disorder
** the Sociopathic Personality Disorder
** the Narcissistic Personality Disorder
** the God-Complex Personality Disorder
** the Sadistic Personality Disorder
** the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
In Personality Type Nines, the following disorders often manifest:
** the Schizoid Personality Disorder
** the Dependent Personality Disorder
** the Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder
None of those disorders bring any thoughts or words or actions or effects which any sane person would desire.
Additionally, all personality
types produce emotional intoxication and emotional instability, and in some
cases another disorder manifests, a disorder known as the Emotionally Unstable
Personality Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder.
When that now-more-commonplace-than-ever disorder is driving thoughts and words
and actions, then persons will find it difficult to distinguish between reality
and their own misperceptions of the world and their surrounding environment.
They will be in a constant state of flux, driven to that “hug-slug” type of chaos-generating behavior marked by a constant shifting of mood and emotional intoxication, saying, “I love you, no wait, I hate you and want you to leave, no wait, I do love you and want you to stay” instability.
[When I was married to a woman with severe Borderline P.D., the question which arose each evening before I opened the door to enter the house was this: Huumm. I wonder if I will come face-to-face with Mrs. Hug or with Mrs. Slug? Can some of you relate?]
Borderlines are as debilitated and debilitating as those who are physically intoxicated and staggering
about in a stupor while thinking they are actually fully aware and totally in
control.
One core problem with persons who suffer from this disorder is their difficulty
with expressing appropriate feelings (and their inability to be totally
“available”) to significant people in their lives. Eventually, as the disorder
progresses, there can be a shift beyond being driven by emotional intoxication
and becoming enraged, distrustful, and fearful.
A key “goal” of the non-dual
understanding is always to move persons to a state of independence. That can
never happen as long as personality is driving them.
The understanding might temporarily offer some degree of “emotion regulation” as
the seeker moves along the path, but in the end, belief in and attachment to
ego-states - to false personalities which generate emotional intoxication -
must be eliminated.
As long as personas are assumed to be real, then all of the negative effects
of personality disorders (relatively-speaking) will manifest and will assure an
existence dominated by fluctuations and chaos and unwarranted fears and
never-met desires.
To be continued.
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:
