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: THE TWO KINDS OF MEDICINE PLACES WHICH THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES USE
[To continued from yesterday]
The
baboon troops which live in that so-called special place - which has historically been their
natural habitat - thrive; those that live unnaturally die an early death after
living a very angry and stressful life. For persons, there is also a natural
option which can allow them to avoid the same, stressful fate and to thrive
instead.
It is called “your original state.” If you visit what Grandmother called “The
Medicine Place,” and if you stand still for half an hour and hear frogs croak
or listen to birds sing or take in the beauty of nature, you will sense that
original “place” of peace that awaits you.
Understand that “The Medicine Place” - to provide all of the healing which a
Medicine Place can provide - must manifest in two forms:
1. a literal form
2. a figurative form
The first is a place that one can visit literally. Historically, it is
characterized by the following:
it is isolated from populated areas; it usually has water nearby, often moving
and generating peaceful sounds as happen with brooks or streams or waterfalls;
it must be untamed; there must be unfettered wildlife present or nearby,
especially birds; trees and shrubbery are a requirement; any sounds heard must
be all-natural in origin.
In some respects, the entire southern tip of South Africa is one vast Medicine
Place made up of thousands of mini-Medicine Places all combined:
Yet what of those trapped in South African townships by the rigidity of
economic hierarchies which exist there, as almost everywhere? What of those who
see little more than their sheet metal homes with cardboard floors, surrounded
by squalor and poverty and crime?
What of those who endure Cape Town’s version of rush hour traffic five nights a
week? What of those dealing with the challenges of job loss or cutbacks? What
of those dealing with the challenges of single parenthood?
What of those dealing with the disappointment of relationships that fail to
meet expectations? What of those dealing with the nagging trials and
tribulations that mark the relative existence everywhere?
What
of those who have turned their property into a wall-in prison and lock themselves
away from what Cape Town could offer if they were not living in such fear that
they have made their rooms into cells only slightly less different from those
on Robben Island?
For those who do not have an opportunity to find respite in a literal Medicine
Place, for them there is the figurative Medicine Place.
Grandmother shared her physical, literal Medicine Place with me so early on
that my years were still being counted with single digits. She took me into the
woods by following a narrow rabbit trail or a wider deer trail that led down the sloping terrain of
the forest behind her clapboard house, a house which had no heat; no
electricity; no hot water; no running water; and no indoor toilet.
(With
that being the case, why was it the most comfortable house that I had ever been
in? Some understand. Some are aware.)
The trail led to a small, “V”-shaped “branch,” as they’re called in the
piney woods of east Texas. The spring-fed stream that made the gorge gurgled
downhill to a place where it formed a small pool of water.
(That
is the same stream which appears in the vision that came and which opened the
door to full realization. The vision will be shared tomorrow.)
Yet I was not there with her year-round; for much of the year, the relative
existence was passed in an impoverished area of a north Louisiana city, a
section of town that was so poor and crime-ridden that it could have easily
been mistaken for a South African township.
It was for that reason that she had me sit with her each morning and afternoon
on her front porch swing, and it was for that reason that she taught me to close
my eyes and see myself sitting next to the bubbling waters of the brook in her
woods.
She taught me that I might be able to sit in that literal Medicine Place only
on occasion but that the Medicine Place could be available in its figurative
form 24 / 7.
Years of seeking and searching would follow, and the tool offered by her was
ignored for decades. There would be years of searching in religious venues and
in spiritual venues.
There
were years of following the big name teachers about in a most sheep-like
fashion. There were years of studying the various methods of “teaching Advaita”
until Maharaj and his Nisarga Yoga were found.
And even then, realization did not come until the vision of that Medicine Place
returned, stored away as it was in that inner place where one must “go” in
order to tap into the inner guru - the inner resource - and find once more that
figurative Medicine Place which is always available 24 / 7.
Even
after the full effects of the Ultimate Medicine have led to freedom from the
Ultimate Sickness, the relative existence goes on, and the relative existence
is always available to spark another illness or two. What then?
As mentioned earlier:
The I-Amness being quite real for now, despair not if the overlaying of Reality
on the relative nevertheless allows strong feelings to manifest. Watch them
rise and fall without believing that some ego-state is being threatened and
thereby generating emotional intoxication; move back to your Original Nature
without judging yourself or engaging in exhausting effort to try to generate
some “higher level of Self-ness.”
Because the realized no longer emote but do feel far more than ever before,
there will be, time and again, those instances in the relative where witnessing
- rather than action - is called for. In those cases, where better to witness
from than Your Medicine Place?
From there, you will not see the relative duality of “up’s and down’s.” You
will see the Oneness and Love and peace and harmony that - for humans - can
only manifest in either an external or internal environment that meets the
criteria set forth for a real Medicine Place.
It
is there that the healing can begin and end, after which the relative can move
along the way that the relative always has and always will.
As long as the AM-ness continues, few will ever have the opportunity to sit in
a literal Medicine Place all day. As the challenges of the relative arise, that
Medicine Place must be with you always.
It must be available 24 / 7 at any time when circumstances require a visit. If
you have not found your literal Medicine Place and then fixed it firmly within,
then for a time you are welcome to use my internal Place.
It is based in a vision which came and which led to the final state of full realization;
it has elements of that earliest, literal Medicine Place that was a gift from
my Cherokee Grandmother who was a Medicine Woman, offering healing physically
to those who came to her in sickness and offering mental and emotional healing
to others.
The vision provides another aspect as well: it shows the “path” for “going back”
in the reverse order of the way that the “coming in journey” happened. It also
shows at the end how you can “come back” in a different way.
That different way allows the relative to unfold without robbing you permanently of any chance at being totally independent and totally free. Only then can you be totally at peace and enjoy the bliss (or happiness or contentment) which can only be enjoyed NOW.
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:
