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.
LESSONS IN NON-DUALITY from TRAVELS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Over the past months, some questions about the content of the book LESSONS IN NON-DUALITY from TRAVELS IN SOUTH AFRICA have been asked. I haven’t discussed the non-dual pointers which came from my trip to the African Continent in more a decade, so I’ll use some excerpts to introduce what I found there
In what was the spring of 2011 in the U.S. and the fall of 2011 in South Africa’s southern hemisphere locale, I was invited to visit Cape Town and its neighboring environs.
Hours spent discussing non-duality and the enneagram still allowed time to visit what was seen to be some of the most beautiful places on the planet along the southern coast roads; some of the most poignant places, such as the prison on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent years breaking up large stones into small stones alongside his fellow prisons;
and some locations which could have been used as what my Cherokee grandmother’s tribe called “a Medicine Place” for those seeking healing in the solitude; furthermore, there was at every turn something which was witnessed that always seemed to present one pointer after another that would be relevant for so-called “non-dualists.” This series will offers some of those pointers which came to me during travels in South Africa.
While
visiting that country in Africa along with its neighboring areas and entering
into discussions about
(1) how the non-dual understanding can be used to address relative issues and
(2) how ill are the effects of personality and
(3) how an understanding of the enneagram can reveal personality’s unconscious
influences on every thought and every word and every action and
(4) how persona-driven fears and desires bring misery and
(5) how mental and emotional disorders are generated when personality is the
subconscious motivator of one’s hidden agendas,
more than one pointers was uncovered that can be relevant to those seeking to
apply the non-duality understanding to all relative happenings.
To begin, you are invited to consider a sculpture that was seen at the
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town. (The gardens there have
been called “the most beautiful gardens in all of Africa.” No argument here.)
Many pieces of artwork on the grounds were impressive, including one in
particular by the artist Bernard Takawira who entitled his non-duality-compatible
sculpture “See More, Talk Less.” (You are invited now to pause and consider the
artist’s message.)
Grandmother
would have appreciated the message behind the sculpture. She once told me that
an indigenous man noted that “truth is what comes between inhalation and
exhalation”; thus, it can never be stated and can only be understood in the silence.
So what might be some of the messages offered by Bernard Takawira’s sculpture?
Might
the relative existence happen more easily and more contentedly were humans to . .
.
. . . see more and talk less?
. . . witness more and emote less?
. . . understand Love more while judging
less?
. . . abide as the Original Nature more
and as the relative “selfs” less?
. . . feel more and emote less?
. . . know the Oneness more and
perceived multiplicities less?
. . . know the joys of overlaying
Reality on the relative more and the misery and suffering of not doing so less?
. . . understand more but know less?
. . . enjoy what you have more and want
far less?
. . . be more natural and less
unnatural?
. . . abide more naturally and less
unnaturally and supernaturally?
. . . be more in the moment and less in
the “past” and “future”?
Also
at the Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town, South Africa, one can see a depiction
in bronze of the key moment during a pursuit when the hunter seizes the hunted.
One animal is leaping in an effort to escape; the other is reaching for the
hind leg of its prey.
The question is, “Has the artist depicted an act of violence . . . or a natural act?” Among humans, are their
actions more often acts of violence . . . or the natural deeds of the kind that
can be witnessed among “realized non-dualists”?
With animals, it’s never personal; with non-realized humans - driven by
personality and selfish desires and perceived fears - it is always personal.
While
sadness might manifest for a few moments any time that a carnivorous hunter is
seen to attack its prey in order to acquire the manifestation-sustaining food
it requires, far more sadness - and even rage - can happen among the realized
(that is, those that would point the way to peace and harmony and Love) when an
act of violence against another a human is witnessed.
To that end, consider the invitation offered via the words on a plaque inside
the “Untamed Museum” in the gardens:
THE RISING
One day
your soul will call to you
with a holy rage.
“Rise up!” it will say . . .
“Stand up inside your own skin.”
Unmask your unlived life . . .
Feast on your animal heart.
Unfasten your fist . . .
let loose the medicine
in your own hand.
Show me the lines . . .
I will show you the spoor
of the ancestors.
Show me the creases . . .
I will show you the way
to the water.
Show me the folds . . .
I will show you the furrows
for your healing.
“Look!” it will say . . .
The line of life has four paths -
one with a mirror,
one with a mask,
one with a fist,
one with a heart.
One day,
your soul will call to you
with a holy rage.
--Ian McCallum
Recently, the heart herein, now devoid of “mirrors and masks and fists,” nevertheless swelled with a feeling of rage (but not as the emotion of rage that is unique to ego-states). The same happened with Maharaj when egotism reared its head in the loft and tried to interrupt the opportunity for seekers to hear the consciousness as it spoke.
In
those cases, the composite unity housing that egotism was cast out in what
appeared to be some kind of “holy rage.” Yet emotion was never involved. The realized feel but do not emote; do not become emotionally-intoxicated; do not become mentally-intoxicated; do not become religiously-or-spiritually-intoxicated.
The realized feel precisely such sadness or “rage” when man’s inhumanity to man
is witnessed, be it directed at one’s self through self-destructive actions, be
it in a relationship or family, be it in a community or a city or state or
nation, or be it between or among nations.
Thus the reference to what similarly registered with the heart herein recently . . . a rage that manifested shortly after making the acquaintance of Hannah in Cape Town.
Hannah lives in a Cape Town “township” (a.k.a., “slum” or “ghetto” in the U.S.) I met her on my first Wednesday in Cape Town. I found her to be intelligent and kind and delightful.
She
moved to the dangerous Cape Town Township because there was no work in her homeland. She is an honest, quiet
- even diffident - reliable, hard-working house cleaner who takes a taxi to
work and back home, usually without incident . . . except on my first Thursday there. On that Thursday,
when she was returning to her township in a multi-person taxicab, she was
attacked by several men.
With “closed fists,” they struck her over and over and then stole her purse with its meager contents. Wealth generates separation
as people around the globe form their fiscal hierarchies, but in both the
richest and the poorest communities, the non-realized will turn on each other,
on their own.
Love and a sense of Oneness generates the opposite, so to that end, a friend there who shares the non-dual message joined with me and we began a collection to replace her funds. When she was able to walk, she was back on the bus going to her next house cleaning job.
Such attacks are never the natural act of one animal attacking another for survival. This was an unnatural act of emotionally-and-mentally sick humans attacking another for pleasure and out of anger at a person who had a job when others did not.
Consider:
QUOTE ONE: The motto of one candidate seeking to be the next president of the U.S. is, “It is not enough that I succeed; others much fail.”
Quote TWO: At the Democratic National Convention last week, more than one speaker made the point that “It is not necessary for others to fail in order for you to succeed.”
The belief in “the other” will bring with it the belief in the sick sentiment expressed in QUOTE ONE.
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:
