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 / Contentment and AS IF LIVING
(The Conclusion)
Recall the pointer offered earlier: Nothing more has happened than this: the personalization of bliss (to the degree that “bliss” is an undisturbed vibration which was subsequently manifested and eventually personalized) became de-personalized via full realization and awareness.
Recall that Maharaj said that “realization is but the opposite of ignorance.” “Full realization” refers to the condition of being totally free of all ignorance, meaning totally free of all taught and “learned ignorance,” including ideas, concepts, notions, thoughts, designs, schemes, perceptions, impressions, images, views, and opinions (a.k.a., “beliefs”).
For millions of years, humans and / or human-like beings abided under the auspices of the brain. Why? Because they had no mind.
It took countless millennia for the human brain to expand and to evolve from its original one-cup size and reach its present three-and-one-half-cup size. Only after that evolution did the brain develop the computer-like parts which can store and recall information.
Hence, humankind was originally mindless and abided under the auspices of the brain alone. Also originally, the mind parts of the brain were “assets” which facilitated the survival of the species.
The content which was originally stored in the mind parts was placed there via direct witnessing, not via ignorance-and-insanity-based programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing. Once the mind became filled with learned ignorance, at that point, the mind became a “liability,” filled with BS and nonsense and irrational concepts and all sorts of belief-based garbage.
Consider the effects of the expanded brain after it became able to store information and retrieve it. Like the pet pit bull that seemed always to be willing to protect its human master from attack and harm, only to turn on that human and attack later on, the same happened with the brain as it evolved.
So the mind turned on humankind. Consider this example involving a couple of early cave dwellers:
With an expanded brain, Thorax was able to store into “memory” the details of an event that happened one day when he and his pal Abrik were out hunting.
Abrik
walked off the edge of the cliff and created quite the splat on the rocks at
the base of the hill he fell from. Witnessing that, when Thorax or his offspring later
approached the edge of a cliff, their evolved brain allowed them to retrieve from
memory - to recall - the fate of Abrik and then stop some distance away from
the edge.
Yet the brain that was humankind’s friend at one point now has a part called
“the mind” that has turned like a pit bull on humanity, so now the brain of
Bill the alcoholic can say at 8 A.M., “Oh my gosh. I feel terrible. For as long
as I live, I will never again drink as much as I drank last night.”
But by 5 P.M., after a day’s stress and anxiety and fear have accumulated
because Bill has no coping skills, “the self-defeating, self-destructive mind”
begins talking and exerts a greater influence than the “would-be self-constructive”
brain which provided a sane and sound message at 8 A.M.
At 5 P.M., the mind part says, “You know you don’t want to go home sober and
try to deal with all of the borderline-dominated issues of your unhealthy relationship there, so one
drink wouldn’t hurt. It will help.”
So when Bill is invited to stop off for a drink with his co-workers, his mind
persuades him to agree. One drink leads to two, two to three, etc., all driven
by Bill’s under-functioning pancreas and his sugar allergy which triggers a desire
for more sugar and leads to his excessive drinking which is egged on my his
physical allergy and his obsessive mind.
Therefore,
Bill arrives home as drunk as he was the night before. The harmful part of the
brain that is “the mind” now holds greater sway over thoughts and words and
actions than the helpful parts of the brain.
Thus, when seekers suggest that they are accumulating knowledge in order to
realize and to be at peace, or that they believe they can use their
intelligence to realize and be at peace, it should now be clear why a realized non-dual
guide points out that it is learned ignorance and egotistical pride in their
intelligence that will be what blocks humans from ever being at peace and from
ever being peaceful.
Again, do not conclude that the opposite of ignorance is intelligence. Some of
the most intelligent people that have come this way are often the most
ignorant, blind, and illogical of all.
Intelligence cannot undo the effects of years of ignorance-and-insanity-based programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing. It takes a special kind of understanding for that to happen.
It takes a “Eureka” moment of realization. It takes what is called in drama a moment of peripeteia.
To understand that term, reflect on the content of this conversation from THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WARS, a non-duality-based adventure / mystery novel:
Look at every drama you’ve ever seen. The main character, who represents you and me and everyone, runs around like a chicken with his head cut off. He is confused and in the dark. Those who are in a position to sit back and witness the drama objectively can see that he's just an actor on a stage and that none of the drama is real.
But for entertainment's sake, he and the witnesses can pretend it's real. Both, in fact, can get so absorbed in the role that they can take it to be the real for a time. But even amidst all the drama, a time comes, namely, that moment in the play when even the actor finds out the truth.
It is called the peripeteia in drama - that moment in the play or the movie when the lead actor finds out that everything he thought to be true is really false; when he sees that he was being misled at every turn; when those he thought he could trust the most and who thought they were telling him the truth were also wrong.
“It’s the moment of freedom that comes when one finds out that everything he ever thought or believed or held sacred or thought worth fighting for was a lie.
The
freedom comes when he gives up all of the concepts he bought into, drops his
head in relief and amazement, shakes his head back and forth, wonders for a
moment how he had bought into all their crap, smiles at how easily he was
duped, watches how all the rest of the play unfolds automatically until
its end, and leaves the stage after saying to himself, “Well sonofabitch. I'll
be damned.” And then he laughs. He laughs at it all. And then he's done with
it, once and for all.”
Thus, the antidote for the Ultimate Sickness is not intelligence. To that end,
is it any wonder that Maharaj recommended becoming “mindless” and reaching a state
of “zero concepts”?
Those who defend their mind and its content are celebrating their having been fooled, their having made into a fool.
How much ignorance-and-insanity-based programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, indoctrination and brainwashing does it take for persons to be proud of having been hookwinked, duped, conned, and deceived so that they unquestioningly accept the false for the truth; the lie for the fact; total BS as sacred, gospel certainties; and dreamed up imaginings for reality?
Once abidance as a body or mind or persona is transitioned, once abidance as a self or a so-called “Self” is transitioned, once abidance as the blocked consciousness is transitioned, then abidance as the Absolute can happen. Then, for the remainder of the manifestation, AS IF LIVING can happen.
AS IF LIVING refers to the manner of abidance which happens post-full-realization when one lives as if anything matters but is fully aware that it’s all much ado about nothing.
Then employment can happen without all the strum und drang which comes with assuming “The Employee” ego-state and with the angst which comes with ego-states' hidden agendas and fears and desires.
The same applies with “The Spouse,” “The Religious One,” “The Spiritual Giant,” “The Boss,” “The One Made to Wait in the Checkout Line by a Sleepwalking Shopper Up Ahead,” “The Waitress or Waiter Dealing with a Customer Trapped in a State of Assholism,” etc., etc., etc.
Recall this pointer offered in the past:
That is the way that AS IF Living happens: You are, but there are no “thoughts,” no “mind,” no sense of separation, no sense of confinement, no fighting with others who are not as “good” as your ego-states and egotism convince you that you are, and no chatter of a thousand monkeys inside your head.
Peace and AS IF Living happen from a point of total “mindlessness.” Peace and AS IF Living happen without identity. Peace and AS IF Living happen without concepts. Peace and AS IF Living happen from a position of neutrality.
Peace and AS IF Living happen from the stance of Witnessing. Peace and AS IF Living happen when the Oneness is understood. Peace and AS IF Living happen beyond self-ness, Self-ness, beingness, and non-beingness.
Peace and AS IF Living happen when persons transcend all personalization and abide as the Absolute.
Remember that Krishna said, “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.”
Peace and AS IF Living happen when the role of “fool” is no longer accepted and the unspeakable truth is known. Then, the truth speaks from within and the full understanding of the Functioning of the Totality happens.
And once that happens, all attachment to the phenomenon is cast aside and peace or at least contentment become the norm.
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:
