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.
CONSCIOUSNESS AND AWARENESS
Beyond SELF-Realization
Though he never numbered the steps on the “path” to realization, Maharaj showed by repeated example that there were seven steps on the path as he originally viewed it.
Eventually, he reduced the steps to four:
Step 1: Be rid of all body identification.
Step 2: Be rid of all mind identification (that is, discard all of the content of the mind, including both the unnatural content and the supernatural, magical-thinking content) and function naturally under the auspices of the brain.
Step 3: Be rid of all personality identification (including all “phenomenal,” relative existence identities) and all dreamed up, supposedly other-world identities (including The Self, The Supreme Self, The Infinite Self, The Eternal Self, The God Self, etc.)
Step 4: Return to the earliest “Child No-Knowing Stage” (a.k.a., “The Child Ignorance State”) before “ignorant and stupid and insane” programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination which was passed down by “ignorance and stupidity and insanity-driven” ancestors and influencers.
Why did Maharaj eliminate his use of steps 5-7? Those were based in the dogma which many Hindus in India added to the non-dual message and understanding which provided a discussion of the steps required to “find your Authentic / Real / Supreme / Infinite / Eternal / God Self.
The logic behind eliminating
those extraneous steps Maharaj explained this way: “You need not find the
answer to ‘What am I?’ It is enough to know what you are not.” (That is found in Steps 1, 2, and 3.)
If it is understood how the consciousness is corrupted among humans after manifestation, then it also can be understood why seekers need a guide (or a guidebook with clear-cut directions, or both).
In the limitless expanse of energy called “The Absolute,” that energy which has the ability to be conscious of and to be aware of, if manifested, is uncontaminated, unconditional, unconditioned, unqualified, unlimited, pure, unadulterated, and unambiguous.
When the consciousness manifests in the space called “a human,” programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination soon result in the originally pure, universal conscious-energy / consciousness being blocked or being contaminated, conditioned, impure, adulterated, and ambiguous.
That blocking or contaminating process results in multiple degrees of separation from Reality (the eternal THAT) and from reality (the temporary AM-ness). The degrees of separation also block the awareness of that which the consciousness truly is and block the awareness of its original, unadulterated nature.
Multiple steps are involved in the-graduated-bastardization-of-the-consciousness process, so the steps of unblocking or of re-purification must happen if the consciousness is to be restored to its natural, non-dual, no-concept, unadulterated state.
Only after realization can the movement to the next level happen, which is abidance not merely as the (re-purified) consciousness but as the Absolute. This is often missed: only full realization (the casting aside of all learned ignorance) is the end of the “journey” and the need to seek.
Here’s another myth breaker: even after having realized, there is no guarantee of unwavering peace or contentment, but the periods of those manifesting have a far better chance of coming if the consciousness / awareness is understood in order to abide as The Absolute for the remainder of the manifestation.
Those who claim to be “Self-Realized” must abandon that identity and abide as the original, now re-purified universal consciousness, to avoid instability since all manifested consciousness must necessarily involve some element of duality, conscious-of-ness being inescapable in that manner of abidance.
Absolute stabilization can only happen via abidance as the Absolute whereby awareness happens without any “one” thinking there is someone or something that is present and able to be “aware of.”
Too, realization can only happen if a seeker moves beyond “The Religious One” role and “The Spiritual Giant” role; moreover, awareness is even beyond that which understands the unicity and the beingness and the non-beingness and which witnesses in a pure manner throughout the remainder of the relative existence.
Abidance as the consciousness guarantees that duality will never be forfeited completely. Only the Awareness is “One” without any “one.” Consciousness can know the “not two.” Awareness is the absolute “not two.”
If you stay alert to the reality of “not two-ness,” then for the sake of discussion you might take consciousness to be the essence of beingness, the re-purified consciousness to be the essence of non-beingness, and awareness to be the essence of the Reality beyond both beingness and non-beingness.
Now, all that having been said, the basic pointer is this: in the no-concept, non-dual Reality / reality, there is no “one thing as opposed to some other thing”; therefore, the “realized non-dualist” understands that the summative statement “I AM THAT; I AM” can be stated and understood without any sense of duality at all. So can “consciousness / awareness.”
A seeker asked, “Isn’t consciousness all there is?” Well, maybe, but what about that which humans are, as well as what all living things are), namely, a composite unity?
Recall, that is a triad. It involves (1) an elemental plant food body, capable of circulating (2) oxygen and (3) conscious-energy. All three of those must function in unison for the temporary manifestation to continue.
As for the conscious-energy, it never remains manifested. It is always coming and going / cycling. Drink water but stop eating and within two months or less, mahasamadhi shall result. Why? Conscious-energy only manifests temporarily.
The “little electric current, set up by the sunshine” - as explained yesterday by Szent-Gyorgyi - requires living things to consume the product of that current / sunshine (namely, plants or animals which ate plants) in order to re-stock the human body's supply of conscious-energy / consciousness. The same is true of oxygen.
And where does that come from? Fifty percent is produced by oceanic plankto (drifting planets, algae, and some bacteria that can photosynthesize. For the most part, the other half comes from land-based plants which can photosynthesize.
There are levels of consciousness ranging from “pure and unadulterated” to “totally corrupted” and that there are modalities of consciousness ranging from “manifested” or “not manifested.”
Then you would consider some levels of consciousness to be “pure and unmanifested” and some levels of consciousness to be “manifest and soon-to-be corrupted.” Next, you would likely speak of “the THAT state” as opposed to “the I AM state.” If you take that stance, then you would also have to conclude that “sugar” and “sweetness” are the same and that “glue” and “stickiness” are the same.
They are not.
In the no-concept, non-dual Reality, the key point is that an understanding of awareness / consciousness is only “relevant” if it guides seekers to the total freedom (during the relative existence) which manifests if abidance happens not as the consciousness but as the unadulterated Awareness or the Absolute.
Consider this analogy:
The Bulb, The Light, The Energy
A seeker once asked, “Will you please explain consciousness as opposed to awareness.”
In the no-concept, non-dual Reality, there is nothing “opposed to” anything else, but the terms can be used post-realization to allow seekers to understand the nature of reality and Reality beyond so-called “Self-Realization.”
Understand, however, that it is possible to abide as the Absolute Awareness during “the manifestation of consciousness” which is called the relative existence. The explanation will begin with this consideration, offered when I was living on the top floor of a condominium on Lake Conroe:
From the third-floor balcony early one evening as a storm approached, the skies were seen to darken. Walkways cross the green terrace that leads down to the lake, and all along those paths, soccer ball-sized lights are mounted on two-foot posts to illuminate the way. As the remaining daylight was blocked by the heavy clouds, the bulbs inside the fixtures were seen to come on automatically.
As water puddled in the walkways, the three-foot high lights which bordered the walk began to cast diagonal reflections of themselves that appeared to be two to three-feet in length. Those golden lines of reflected light glistened in the water and appeared to become a thousand smaller lights, twinkling as the raindrops began to splatter into the gathered pools.
The invitation to the seeker is to pause now, to consider consciousness / awareness, to consider the description, and to try to find a message in that description which might be relevant to understanding consciousness / awareness.
Now, do you understand that the reflections were not the real light? Even the appearance of “a thousand smaller lights” was a misperception. If you the seeker had been there and looked beyond the reflection, you would have seen the actual light fixtures in the background.
Too, you would have understood that there was something even beyond that which was housing the light, namely, a form of energy. No one had to tell that energy how to behave in order for the light and reflections to appear. It just all happened automatically.
Recall that in the no-concept, non-dual Reality, there is nothing “opposed to” anything else, but the terms “consciousness” and “awareness” are pointers used in explanations of energy manifested, energy not manifested, pure energy, corrupted energy, and energy unmanifested.
Understand first, though, that since Reality is non-dual, consciousness / awareness is not two, just as the summative statement I Am / I Am That is not two. That said, “attributes” can nevertheless be pointed to for the sake of discussion and understanding.
In the analogy above, the bulb temporarily is because of human behavior, just as an act of friction involving two humans made possible the temporary Is-ness of the short-term manifestation of consciousness presently being called “you.”
Because that bulb (consciousness) is, the reflections seem to be and seem to be real. Yet neither the consciousness (bulb) nor the perceived reflections are real; that is, neither are that which is permanent. The bulb (consciousness) will someday not be because the elements combined as the space called “a bulb” will return to the pool of universal elements.
The same will happen with the human, elemental, plant food body.
When the consciousness (bulb) is manifested no more, then the reflections that only appear to be real will no longer be perceived at all. What remains? The energy which made possible the temporarily-manifested consciousness (the lit bulb), which had made it possible for false reflections to seem real and which made it possible for the false “smaller lights” to seem real.
That which is behind and beyond the bulb - the Awareness - allowed the consciousness to be temporarily manifested. The temporary manifestation of consciousness generated the temporary misperceptions.
Thus: “Those alone who understand that I, the Absolute, am beyond the states of being and non-being realize my true nature, and all others are fools.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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:
