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 SECOND DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY:
Mind Identification
and
THE THIRD DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY:
Religious and / or Spiritual Identifications
(Excerpts from a satsang session conducted in 2004)
F.: “To conclude the discussion of The Second Degree of Separation from Reality, Mind Identification, I’ll read an excerpt from the interview at the end of a non-duality novel I’m working on.”
From the editor’s interview at the end of the non-dual based adventure / mystery novel “The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders.”
Editor: “How can the readers’ realization, and thus their freedom, come?”
F.: “By realizing that there is no duality. The labels we accept, the roles we play, are the very constraints that imprison us mentally. Consider this, please: if you work during the week and are off on the weekends, and you have a job that is very challenging, even draining, then you might experience something like the following.
On Monday, your alarm goes off. You unthinkingly shut it off. Just gaining consciousness, you know ‘I am.’ The knowledge of existing in this body begins to come to you.
As you awaken more, you remember you are ‘The Employee,’ and you have to get up and leave the comfort of your bed, your room, your house or apartment, and go off to play that role and to try to meet all the expectations and demands that come with having accepted that role and believing it is you.
Quickly, the ego will promote you to ‘Super Employee,’ and eventually you’ll be convinced you’re not getting the money or the respect you deserve.
Frustration will build as a result of accepting that role. You take things personally, for you are playing a persona, a role, accepting a false identity. If you get fired, you might feel as if you’re dying.
To 'exist,' ‘The Employee’ must have a job. Your very identity seems challenged, so your very existence seems at stake. Consider that same ‘employee’ on a Saturday. No alarm goes off. The awakening comes slowly.
As one gains consciousness, one knows ‘I am.’ Then, the fact that it’s Saturday settles in. One does not have to go to work. One does not go into the mode of ‘The Employee’ but rolls over in bed and enjoys just being there. To stay in the ‘I Am-ness’ prevents accepting false roles and identities.
To stay in the awareness that ‘I Am, period’ allows one to relax. Free of that false identity for the day, one remains in the ‘I Am,’ in the ‘Is-ness’ only, and thus at ease. That same awareness, seven days a week, will allow the perpetual peace and the constant ease to manifest.
That person is not playing the role that day, is not trying to meet expectations and demands, and is free and feels free. What he is really free of is accepting the label.
How many who consider themselves to be men or women are really nothing more than a bundle of concepts and labels and identities assigned by this culture? Is it any wonder that most, before making it to the grave, will wonder ‘Who am I?’ or will state flat out, ‘I don’t even know who I am’?
To be free is to be free of the false identities that
jerk us around and jerk around the people in our vicinity who allow our
role-playing and role-demands to impact them. Once we come to know who / what we really are and stay
in the ‘I Am’ state, we accept no false roles as identifiers of who we are;
we accept no false labels as identifiers
of who we are, no dependencies as a
result of believing we are what we do.” [From the non-duality novel entitled “The
Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders,” available as an ebook at www.floydhenderson.com.]
F.: “In any discussion of the mind, the key pointer is that . . . in truth there is no mind. A series of false ideas and wrong concepts are thought to be truth. Abandon the body. Abandon the mind. Abandon all false identities.”
Q.: “But I really am an employee. How can I not be driven by that role?”
F.: “No, You are not an employee. Since you do not yet know what you truly are, you don’t see all that you are not. Peace came with my understanding of what I am, with (more significantly) and with the subsequent shift to the pure, universal consciousness.
When I was ‘The Teacher,’ promoted instantly to ‘Super Teacher’ since egoism accompanies all roles, I was frustrated when lessons were interrupted and ‘Super Teacher’ could not do what he had planned to do.
Peace came with the realization that all merely happens. That allowed me to flow along with the realization that ‘Today, teaching will happen . . . or not.’ If it happened the way I planned, okay.
If it didn’t happen at all because of circumstances far beyond my control, so it was. Either way, I merely witnessed teaching happen, or I merely witnessed teaching not happen. I could just be, unaffected by what did or did not happen, unaffected by any employment-role delusions. Understand that you are not what you do. Peace.”
Q.: [Nods]
F.: “Stay in the ‘I Am.’ That means shifting from the corrupted mindset that allows any word to follow the phrase ‘I am.’ If a word follows that phrase, reject it: not ‘I am an Employee / Super-Employee.’ Just, ‘I Am’.”
THE THIRD DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY:
Religious and / or Spiritual Identifications
F.: “I’ll mention before we begin that you might want to buckle your seatbelts. If this session is typical, we may be in for some turbulence. Ha. [Light laughter] Our ‘journey’ has reached the third stage. It is here that the broad highway narrows to a tapered path.”
Q.: “And why is that?”
F.: “Because a narrow, tapered path will handle the low volume of traffic from this point forward. Most will not move beyond the obstacles discussed in this session. The majority will quit or abandon this multi-step journey at level three.
Early on, my guide guessed that one in ten thousand might make it to the ‘end’; later, he predicted one in a million. Even later, he estimated that one in ten million might reach a state of realization. He was only guessing, but he might have been close.”
Q.: “Not very good odds.”
F.: “Indeed.”
Q.: “Maybe we need better guides.” [Laughter]
F.: “Indeed.”
Q.: “No fight? Ha.”
F.: “None. The variable is not only the guide. As the non-dual playwright Shakespeare said in Hamlet: The readiness is all. Are you ready?”
Q.: “Yes.”
F.: “We’ll see.” [Laughs] Let’s move to the Third Degree of Separation from Reality: assuming Religious Roles or Spiritual Roles as actual identities. Note, please, that I speak of religious or spiritual roles as obstacles. Why are they obstacles?
Two reasons: first, they are personas. They are just new but false personas adopted to replace other roles or to ‘co-exist’ in a conditioned mind with other states-of-being this or being that.
Secondly, religion and spirituality - by their very nature and by virtue of the manner in which they are practiced by most - foster duality. They are steeped in duality; in fact, they are likely the most prolific of all at passing down duality-based ignorance and insanity.”
Q.: “I disagree completely. The ultimate message of both religion and spirituality deals with atonement and oneness and that can’t do anything but help all mankind. How can a message of oneness be ‘steeped in duality’?”
F.: “You speak in suppositions; I speak of actualities. You dream of a bountiful yield; I see the fruit already in store.”
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:
