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.
“DO NOT SEARCH FOR THE ANSWER TO ‘WHO AM I?’ IT IS ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND ‘WHO / WHAT YOU ARE NOT’.”
THE FIRST DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY:
Body Identification (con’t.)
[From a satsang session]:
F.: “Having been ‘to the end’ and having transcended the degrees that had separated me from awareness of the Absolute, I was able to ‘look back’ from the place of Reality and see all the false. I can tell you that once I came to know THAT, I no longer ponder any false ego-state, persona, or identity when I hear the ‘Who or What Am I?’ query.
But most have not yet been to the end. You are at the beginning of the path, so you must see each and every thing that you are not, and if you would know the answer to the question, you must transcend - in order - each of the stages which I’ll make you aware of in our sessions.
Compare our journey to moving up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. If you do not master level one, you cannot ascend to two. If you have not mastered levels one and two, you cannot transition to three.
As with the climb up Maslow’s pyramid to “actualization,” the journey to Reality cannot skip any of the stages I’ll define, all of which must be transitioned. With each advancement along the path, you move farther away from the personal and closer to the Impersonal Reality. You must clearly see the illusion of each of the degrees that I define for you, and you cannot skip from one to three or from two to five.
You must consider each of the stages, see the lies around each, and only then move to the next. You have been led to believe that you are many things. All that you have ever been told to this point is a lie;
on the other hand, all which is already within you that you have not yet experienced will serve as your vehicle to truth, and then all that is within you which you already know - but do not yet know that you know - will be revealed. Inquiry ends and you will understand the Real.”
Q.: “Would you say that again?”
F.: “I’ll repeat the part you should focus on for now. You must see each and every ‘thing’ that you are not. For now, seek not the truth. Only seek to realize all that is false. That is your beginning. When you eventually come to know “The Great Reality” The Absolute - you will realize that all perceived via the five senses is false and is nothing more than learned ignorance.
It is learned ignorance which spoiled your access to the pure, universal consciousness and resulted in a ‘mind.’ The journey via the non-duality approach will 'detox' your consciousness and restore it to its original, pure condition. Once you’re ‘out of your mind,’ then you will know That which you know.”
Q.: “So consciousness is not destroyed at death? What about, ‘He’s lost consciousness’?”
F.: “Ha. In that case, why not also ask, ‘What about, “The earth is flat”?’ Let’s go back to the ice cube to discuss the false concept of ‘loss.’ If an ice cube melts in a glass of hot water, you might have seemingly ‘lost’ your ice cube, but have you really lost the clusterings of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen?”
Q.: “Of course not.”
F.: “So it is with consciousness. The ice cube resulted when clusters of three atoms combined in an exact pattern at a specific temperature. Even after the ‘disappearance’ from your view, that which it was . . . remains. It is.
I am sorry to shatter another popular illusion, this one relating to what a special gift you were from some entity, but now is an appropriate time to report to you that your body resulted nine months after two plant-food-eaters entered into an exercise of friction. That’s it. (Laughter) You are elements and gas and conscious-energy manifest, and when the body ‘disappears,’ conscious-energy cannot be destroyed. It is not lost. Now, you should be moving to a clearer understanding that you are not the body.”
Q.: “But the cube was at one point and now it isn’t.”
F.: “If you believe that, then you’ll continue to cling to your body identification. Your journey ends here. You will never get past this first degree, much less be able to negotiate the remainder. If you look at a steel girder from a distance, and then look at the same girder through an electron microscope, what you report seeing in those two instances will appear to be very different.
When you see the girder at an atomic level, it looks nothing like what you thought you were perceiving with the naked eye. Did you lose the girder once you looked into the microscope? No. The only thing you lost was a wrong perception regarding what that girder really is.”
Q.: “Clarify, please. It seems the girder is both what I see with the naked eye and what I see through the microscope.”
F.: “So you choose to abandon non-duality and adopt duality? In that case, you’re excused. You may leave. (Laughter) No, please be seated. I was joking, though I can assure you that my teacher would have run you out of his loft the second you made that comment.”
Second Questioner: “Speaking of running people away from his loft, I’ve read his talks and you don’t really sound like him.”
F.: “Ha. Well, thank you. I thank you and, were that manifestation before us, it would thank you. Study the enneagram system and you’ll see that there are nine very different personality types. Some will relate to my experience with non-duality and some will not. Too, some are ready to hear and some are not. And some who do not ‘get it’ from me might get it later from another.
My guide was not the first who tried to give me the understanding; he was merely the last. He became the last because he was the first to show me that the guru which is within. Those who knew Maharaj’s guru said that my guru did not sound like his guru, and they were correct. If you hear what I say, OK. If you do not, maybe you will hear it from another . . . or not.”
2nd Q.: “Fair enough.”
F.: “And you, too, are lucky I’m not my guide. I would have to run you out as well. Ha.” (Laughter. Then to the first questioner) Back to your comment about the girder. In non-duality, there’s no place for your comments about ‘It looks like this and also that’ or for your thoughts that something ‘was’ but now ‘is not.’ That too is just more duality.
If you drop an ice cube into a glass of hot water, and the cube dissolves, and you know that cube was a cluster of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in combination, can you rightly say, ‘That which once was, now no longer is’?
Q.: (Hesitates) “No.”
F.: “Can you say, ‘Now it is not’? Can you rightly draw that conclusion, knowing what you know about atoms?”
Q.: “No.”
F.: “On the other hand, can you rightly claim that ‘the cube’ still is?”
Q.: “No.”
F.: “The atoms that had manifested in the shape of a cube no longer have a ‘cube-shaped appearance,’ but they remain exactly what they always were and have always been. So all that you need say is, ‘That which I originally thought to be a cube with a particular shape, a perception rooted in my faulty programming, was not that at all.
What I thought it was that I thought I was seeing has disappeared from my view, and now I know that what it really is, was, and always shall be . . . still IS. Now, say the same about your body: ‘That which I originally thought my body to be, based on my faulty perceiving and programming, is not what it seemed to be at all.
What I thought it was that I thought I was seeing has disappeared from my view (during the arms-legs-organs exercise) but what it really is, was, and always shall be . . . still IS. The elements remain, the oxygen remains, the conscious-energy remain. They simply are not ‘in combination as a composite unity’ any longer.
Q.: “OK! I see that!”
F.: “In the case of ice cubes dropped in hot water and in the case of bodies losing parts and eventually ‘disappearing,’ we are seeing evidence of cycling, that’s all. Some groups fabricate a concept called ‘time’ and speak of ‘an eternity’ and geographic places where they believe their bodies and minds and personalities shall exist ‘forever.’
Claiming to be ‘spiritual,’ they are actually focused on nothing but body and mind. Ignoring cycles, they speak of a timeline with a beginning, a middle, an end, a judgment, and then eternity in one place or another.
In fact, if eternity runs infinitely along their line in that direction (pointing right) then logically eternity must run forever in that direction (pointing left) as well. Infinite is infinite. ‘Infinite’ knows no direction. If infinity is to follow their ‘death,’ then infinity must have preceded their ‘birth’ as well.
If all is energy and if energy cannot be created nor destroyed but just IS, then what is this talk of a ‘creation’? And if there is talk of a creation, then talk of “a creator” usually follows since the ancient pagan myths have been handed down and thrive in the newer religions.
In reality, infinite is infinite. Let your thinking mind dissolve and sense the cycles. Truly know infinity rather than imaginary timelines.
Here’s what I’m writing for the book “The Board of Directors of Wars”: Begin in the silence. Experience the reality of the cycles. Know that the timeline of birth, life, death, judgment, eternal damnation or eternal salvation represents nothing more than an Anglo concept.
In the place of such limited, linear thinking, try to actually experience - at the innermost core of your being - the cycles. Then you won’t attach to that “I love spring, but I hate winter” mentality. You’ll stop over-celebrating what you label as ‘good,’ and you’ll stop over-mourning what you label as ‘bad’ because you’ll know the temporary nature of all conditions in this existence. All will cycle into something else.
Once you fix that truth at a core level, and once it resonates through each and every fiber of the fabric of your transitory existence, then why would you sweat the penetrating heat or the bitter cold if you know it’s not the real, not the permanent?’
Give no regard to anything that is temporary, for it is illusion. Detach from all illusion. Now, back to consciousness. Consider its energy aspect. (Picks up a card and reads) Szent-Gyorgyi correctly observed, ‘What drives life is thus a little electric current, set up by the sunshine.’ Can you create energy - that ‘electric current’?”
Q.: “No.”
F.: “Can you destroy energy?”
Q.: “No.”
F.: “Can energy cycle?”
Q.: “Yes.”
F.: “Then realize that energy-consciousness is eternal and that it can manifest in that which has no eternal form. When the form ends, the manifestation of that consciousness ends, but the consciousness itself does not end. Sense the cycles.
The Real is eternal; the temporary is not That. Apply that understanding to your body and stop believing that the real you is a physical body.”
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:
