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:
Peace
and Contentment / Happiness (con't.)
If realized, it is understood that this beingness is temporary and that the non-beingness is the completely natural state (as opposed to unnatural states or supernatural states as adopted by non-Realized persons). Energy manifests and is aware of the beingness, then energy unmanifests and has no space or form by which the beingness can be known.
THAT is perfect peace, not unlike the delta-sleep state of brain movement during deep sleep. The non-beingness is that natural state with no body, no mind, no form, no space, no . . . anything. It is the Void, the Nothingness, when THAT Which Is does not even know that It Is.
Call it "bliss" if you like, but the realized know that bliss can only be known during the beingness if the Void and the Nothingness are Realized during the manifestation of consciousness. If one is at perfect rest during a deep sleep, that might appear to be a blissful state, but the human in deep sleep does not know that it is and is not conscious of "bliss."
Only when fully awake, aware and conscious can the bliss be known, if Realized. Bliss is the stuff of being manifested and realized during the period of Amness. The non-being state that follows has no awareness of awareness.
Having transitioned into the non-beingness, the consciousness Is, but it cannot know It Is. Enjoy it NOW, for no other opportunity exists. That allows for peace to happen every day. So does a clear understanding of what bliss is and what bliss is not.
The only thing “blissful” about re-absorption into the Absolute is the bliss of the Void, of the nothingness, of the no-mind, no-body, no-personality, non-beingness and That which is even beyond the non-beingness. If one is “wanting bliss,” then it can be known now, but it cannot be experienced in the way that most want to experience it. Why?
Post-realization, there is no experiencer. Actually, bliss is nothing more than a vibration that continues to vibrate without any disturbance. Any other definition that generates some unattainable experience is an obstacle to peace happening every day. Those who seek the state that persons mistake for “bliss” are being set up for disappointment by their belief in a concept.
If peace during the relative comes in the void (in the nothingness of sleep) and if peace awaits (in the nothingness of that void when unmanfested consciousness returns to its former “at-rest state”) then how might persons find that void in the NOW and experience that bliss (a) while awake rather than in deep sleep and (b) while the consciousness is manifested rather than unmanifested? The peace of the void cannot be known by persons driven to seek more rather than less.
“Con” = “together,” “with,” or “together with.” The very prefix reveals the duality. Consciousness cannot be the non-dual reality. The non-dual reality is beyond dualistic consciousness.
Awareness is thoughtless, unmanifested consciousness…is no-mind consciousness. This is far beyond any talk of samadhi or its five types. Awareness does not provide a temporary respite from thoughts and desires and fears. Awareness is permanent freedom from the fictitious mind and the beliefs and desires and fears that originate therein.
“Being in touch with Reality” is actually about being in touch with nothing . . . freed from being in touch with anything that is not real, that is phenomenal, and that is mind-generated or culture-generated. Awareness removes all identification with anything other than the void or nothingness, which means there is no identification at all.
Abidance as the awareness can happen even during the manifestation of consciousness and is the unconditional “condition” referred to by the terms fully realized, enlightened, liberated, actualized, etc.
Essence is the attribute (or set of attributes) that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is. The essence of a being is simply that which it fundamentally is, and happiness during the manifestation comes when aligned with the essence. Thereafter, peace every day happens.
Earlier the pointer was offered that “the ‘journey’ to true freedom does not end at the point of "Self"-realization, and to transmit that fact is the only reason this discussion is warranted.” The full understanding of Awareness must happen for freedom - and therefore happiness - to manifest. It must be understood that awareness is but has no awareness of self, of Self . . . of anything.
Namkhai Norbu said this about awareness: “This is the open secret, which all can discover for themselves. We live our lives, as it were ‘inside out,’ projecting the existence of an ‘I’ as separate from an external world which we try to manipulate to gain satisfaction.
"But as long as one remains in the dualistic state, one's experience has always underlying it a sense of loss, of fear, of anxiety, and dissatisfaction. When, on the other hand, one goes beyond the dualistic level, anything is possible.” Including peace every day."
The Final Frontier" of the non-dual understanding is transitioned when the Nature of Reality is understood and when non-dual pointers are "applied" on a daily basis even in the absence of any "Applier."
The Nature of Reality cannot be understood until the attributes of consciousness and awareness are understood. Understanding the Nature of consciousness allows for abidance in the I AM, but what of THAT Which Is beyond, and that which is beyond the beyond?
Only abidance as the Absolute allows the remainder of the manifestation of consciousness to happen in perfect peace. That is Your Original Nature; that allows for natural ("nirsarga") living.
The Final Frontier" of the non-dual understanding is transitioned when seekers understand the attributes of consciousness and awareness, can define the exact Nature of Reality, can witness as full realization happens, can come to an understanding of the Functioning of the Totality, and can then fixate in a state of peace from NOW until the Consciousness is not longer manifest.
If not firmly fixed as The Nothing (as the awareness that is not aware), then everything in the relative existence will be taken to be “something”: a breakup, a traffic ticket, problems with school assignments, problems while seeking employment, problems with neighbors, problems with persons not accepting you in the fashion you expect, problems with persons behaving in a way that is not pleasing to you, problems with persons not properly “honoring you” in the manner your egoism desires, ad infinitum.
Even among those seekers who “find,” who feel that they have realized fully, fluctuations have been witnessed. In cultures that program persons to “get,” the value of absolute de-accumulation is usually given little more than lip service.
In cultures where desires are a motivating factor - in homes, in schools, in churches, in jobs, ad infinitum - how many have any chance at all to actually desire . . . nothing? It is the very desiring, along with concern that all which is desired might not be attained, that perpetuates imagined fears.
When “desiring” is given such value in cultures, how many will be content with “nothing” (which is what allows all desires and all fears to end)? Acculturation programs persons to want something, not nothing. “Zero” is despised among persons, but only by reaching a state of “zero concepts” can peace happen every day.
Moreover, persons become so trapped in their desire for post-manifestation body-mind-personality continuity that they think they cannot be happy during the manifestation unless they also have continuity of all things: their spouse or partner; their home; their whatever - they want the temporary things in the relative to have absolute continuity. How can anyone ever be happy, living in such a delusional condition? One cannot.
“Peace Every Day” can only happen in the abidance that is “beyond conscious of-ness.” The relative existence comparison offered by Advaitins is "the deep sleep metaphor" wherein peace happens beyond relative consciousness.
Again, compare the “beyond conscious of-ness” to the awareness of the body’s need that automatically, spontaneously keeps the heart and the lungs functioning even as there is no “one” present to consciously “do” that.
Also, understand the automatic, spontaneous functioning in order to understand how the relative existence happens with no illusion of a “do-er” being present and with abidance happening even beyond conscious of-ness. That happens when abidance as the Absolute happens.
It should be seen why it is frequently repeated that, ultimately, there is no “goal” of abiding as consciousness. For full freedom (and then happiness) to happen during the manifestation of consciousness, abidance must happen as the Absolute.
Furthermore, peace cannot happen if body-mind-personality identification is not transcended because persons will continue to fear death and will desire continuity. Do you see now why the concept of “death” is given no credibility by the realized, much less any “concern”?
It is understood by the realized that what persons call “death” is merely the unmanifesting of consciousness, is merely the releasing of compact groupings of energy that are just “ungrouping” and being “freed up” to move about in a wider, less-limited (actually infinite) space, exactly as prior to manifestation.
That
"ungrouping" and "releasing" of energy from a confined
space (called "death" by persons) is a totally meaningless happening
except to the corrupted consciousness that believes in the distorted, dualistic
concepts of “good” vs. “bad” and “right” vs. “wrong” and the subsequent
“punishment” vs. “reward” of a body-mind-personality triad with supposed
eternal continuity. In fact, only the energy is infinite and eternal; the body
and "mind" and personality are illusory phenomena that are finite and
temporary.
So that which persons refer to as “the moment of death” is really just the unmanifestation process whereby those larger groupings of energy particles in a confined space are freed from that space and enter into an expansive, unlimited energy field or space (called “The Absolute” in order to emphasize the pure and unadulterated state of the energy while in that space).
By “relocating” from a confined space called “the human body,” for example, those elementary particles can group together in that vast and expansive ocean of energy;
however, they will group into smaller gatherings and into fewer configurations since they are not being compacted into a small space. The prerequisites for “human consciousness” are not met in that case. That is an ending of “prerequisites,” not an ending of “life.”
During the process whereby consciousness unmanifests, therefore, particles of energy are merely “spreading out” or "being freed from ‘confinement’ in a compact space."
After being freed from the confines of a relatively small space with a nervous system - such as a plant or a plant food body (which persons dualistically call "a human" or "an animal" or "a bird") - the energy moves into the limitless expanse of The Absolute and the particles “move apart.” In that freed-up space, the essence of Reality / awareness) IS.
Now, are you also seeing that though the cycles are naturally happenings, the manifesting of consciousness is actually, on one level, a very unnatural event? Why? That which is normally and naturally free to move about in an unrestrained environment and in an unrestricted manner is temporarily not free to function in that manner.
Manifested consciousness, as the physicist will understand, is actually “restricted” and “restrained” when compared to the “normal” state of particles of energy which move about in a limitless field or space. Compare (a) the unrestricted movement of light waves moving instantly from the sun to the moon and reflecting off that surface with (b) the restricted movement of conscious-energy striking one synapse after another within the limited space of a human brain.
Here is all that happens when a human “dies” or when a bug is struck by the windshield of a car: a temporary “association of” or “involvement among” certain elements and energy and air comes to an end. Though that particular association ends, the elements do not end, the air does not end, and the energy does not end.
What did come to “an end” with the smashed bug (or a supposedly “dead human”) was an ever-changing combination of elements, air, and energy which were in a constant state of flux but perceived by persons to have had continuity. The fact is that no “same bug” will ever be again, and no “same human” shall ever be again, but the same elements and air and energy shall be forever.
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:
