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 THIRD DEGREE OF SEPARATION FROM REALITY:
Religious and / or Spiritual Identifications
(Excerpts from a satsang session conducted in 2004)
Q.2.: “I wasn’t in the last session, but my own experience shows that my Higher Power has given me the power to accept the things I cannot change . . . things like you, for example. So I’ll keep doing my spiritual work, and He’ll keep giving me power and peace.”
F.: “Actually, since you weren’t in the last session, and since we’re taking the steps of a journey in a specific order, you won’t be able to make this journey with us at this time, but I’ll finish our discussion. You speak of having to work to get peace. My life is without toil since all work involves working to ignore mirages or working to accept mirages. No more mirages . . . no more work.”
Q. 2.: “You know what? It's obvious that you've got nothing to give, so you can't really be of any service to anyone.”
F.: “I agree. I am not of service and I have nothing to give; in fact, I'll take everything away from those who can hear.”
Q. 2: “Say whatever you want. The fact is that I serve God and help others while all you're doing is harming others. And someday when we both stand in judgment before Him, I’d a helluva lot rather be me than you.”
F.: “You have merely been re-programmed while what is called for is to be de-programmed. When your mind dissolves, so will every concept that you've ever dreamed up, including the god of your own conception. As far as helping others, who can know what any ‘others’ need, long term? Since there is no separation, my teacher advised that each should focus on helping the only one he or she can help—herself or himself. Then, the relative improves for all.”
Q. 2: “I can’t help myself, but I can help others.”
F.: “So a man who cannot swim can rescue others who are drowning? Hummm. And how do you claim to help these ‘others’?”
Q. 2.: “I share my experience, strength, and hope with them.”
F.: “Listening to you reminds of a doll my daughter had as a child. It has a string in the back that could be pulled and it ‘spoke’ one robotic statement after another which it had been programmed to say. But here’s the deal: all experience is about the five-sense, phenomenal existence, which is a mirage.
Strength is about power, and power is about control, and control is about ego, and ego is a mirage. Ultimately, ego is about fear . . . generated as a result of one knowing at some level that she or he has no power.
Hope is merely about desires for the future, but the future is a mirage; therefore, your experience and strength and hope are all mirages, outgrowths of phenomenal desires and phenomenal fears. What help is derived from sharing ideas about mirages that are based in desires and fears?
Worse, fear and desire are the sources of anger, and anger is the source of all hostility. Hostility becomes the source of all harm. [Look of hatred from questioner] Right now, it seems that anger is what you’re experiencing, so the point I offered earlier - that your peace is fragile and can be destroyed by words alone - is confirmed.”
Q. 2: [Expletive]
F.: “I’ll offer a final consideration, and then suggest you go find a quiet place and follow my grandmother’s three-moon rule. She advised that each human should take any consideration into three days of quiet contemplation before accepting or rejecting the point. So here’s the final consideration for you:
before dedicating your life to serving others, why not first serve yourself by investigating whether or not there might be a reality beyond your current spiritual identity that could lead you into a stable and never-ending position of neutrality around the words or actions of others? If it’s peace you want, realization can result in an unshakable peace.”
Q. 2.: “I think instead that I’ll follow my sponsor’s advice and go home and pray for you. I can’t hate anyone I pray for.”
F.: “So be it.”
Q. 2.: [Harshly] “Yeah, so be it!” [Exits noisily]
F.: [Pause] “Turbulence.” [Laughter]
F.: “Well . . . it seems the pointers that I intended to offer verbally, you have now received experientially. Ha. [Laughter] In that exchange, you didn’t see The Super Religious One and The Spiritual Giant at their worst - they can be far worse - but you did see the emotional intoxication that these roles can generate.”
Q.: “So, is his attitude about you right . . . you don’t believe in God?”
F.: “I don’t believe in the mind or any of the mythical, fictional junk which programmers have stored there, so I certainly don’t believe in what someone says is a concept dreamed up in the mind. Some use the term Brahman to point to the Absolute Reality and some speak of the ‘matrix’ or of ‘Prakriti.’
In the West, some claim that those terms refer to their ‘God’ (which has personal traits) but the Absolute Reality is not some omnipotent person. The Absolute is impersonal. Better for you, go to the end of this path and see for yourself.
For me, the issue is moot. There’s no reality in any concept, so this is the stage where the serious move on and where the players step into the Quicksand of Beliefs and stay behind. It’s time to start purging the mind and being rid of all concepts.”
Q.: “But I’ve always had a sense that some kind of external power must exist."
F.: “Of course external power exists. The sun is an external power source, but someone thousands of years ago projected himself onto an imagined source, gave it personal traits, and ever since, humans have repeated the tale to impressionable children.
More to the point, you never had any innate sense that some personal external power exists any more than you had an innate sense that Santa Claus exists. You believe what you were told. You believed for years that there was a super-human male at the North Pole who was omnipotent and omniscient because you were told he exists.
You believed that he knew if ‘you’d been good or bad’ and would give you gifts if you’d been ‘good.’ you also believed he was old, white-bearded, kind, giving, loving, residing in a remote location, unseen, etc.
You didn’t come up with all that, but you believed it when it was told to you as fact by people you trusted. An entire culture joined in, and if you asked any of them about this far-out tale, they supported the lie. But inside, as you became older, you had a notion that the story was rubbish.
Even then, though, it’s possible that when an older mate on the schoolyard first suggested 'Santa isn’t real,' you were probably ready to fight, not unlike the man who just stormed out of here.”
Q.: “Ha. Guilty!”
F.: “Why? You wanted to believe in order to receive forever the gifts from that super-powerful being. And when did you finally learn that there was no Santa?
Did they come to you voluntarily to tell you the truth? No. They didn’t say, 'Hey, we need to come clean. We need to be honest with you. We lied. Somebody just made up all that rubbish and we just repeated it.
As for all of that wonderful story and all of those wonderful traits rolled into one super-powerful being . . . it was all a lie. Sorry to set you up with such great hope and then disappoint you.' No, you found the truth when someone offered an opposing view and suggested that you question what they told you.
You had to confront your belief systems. You had to say, “This Santa tale actually sounds like a bunch of rubbish. Is this real, or not?” That’s my invitation to you. Go into the silence and question it all. Ask the tough questions.”
Q.: “Easier said than done.”
F.: “Why would you delay, having already seen exactly how the minds of the people who programmed you actually worked at that time? Their minds told them, ‘We think it would be a great idea to lie to this child and tell him that he's being watched every second - asleep or awake - by an unseen male who lives at a faraway location and who knows if he's been good or bad.
We'll also tell him that the male is keeping a list and will either give a reward or withhold a reward depending on the good-bad label earned.’ The same people who thought it would be good to lie you - and then later admitted that they were liars - those very people then gave you the same story over again but used a new name for the male: ‘God’.”
But you didn’t question that story the second time around. Why not? You questioned the first lie they told you, even knowing you’d end the illusion and not receive any rewards eternally. Why do you not have the courage right now to question their revised version as well? Seek the answer, knowing that this time, you need ask no one. The answer is within.
Ask, ‘Is it possible that personal power sources were dreamed up and tales of them are now passed on as a result of human desires and human fears and human resistance to the fact that man can do nothing, and need do nothing, to become free of the bondage of misery-causing fear and frustration-causing desires that result from accepting the body-mind-personality as ‘self?’
You’ll see that all misery comes when fear and desire meet at the same point.”
Q.: “Meet at the same point?”
F.: “Take as an example the display of misery you witnessed earlier. The dream of having power now and being guaranteed eternal life for the body-mind-personality creates a desire that is accompanied by fear. The body-mind-personality desires power and eternal life, but at the same time it fears eternal punishment.
The desire and fear met at the same point - at the point of ‘the concept of eternal continuity.’ You witnessed the result. If you challenge the method that someone is following to pursue a desire or to avoid a fear, then expect emotional intoxication to ensue.
In the same fashion, when ‘husband’ thought he was dying, the misery resulted when desire and fear met at the concept of ‘wife.’ The role of ‘husband’ desired her and feared he would lose her. His desire and fear met at the same point . . . at the false concept of ‘wife’.”
Q.: “You’re right!”
F.: [Staring at Q., without comment. Eventually smiling. Light laughter from the group.] “Let’s return to the original pointer. The journey we are on aims to put us fully in touch with reality. To be out of touch with reality is to be insane.
This journey is about getting in touch with reality in order to be free of the bondage of the illusions and falsehoods of a mind exposed to years of programming, acculturation, domestication, conditioning, brainwashing, and indoctrination.”
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:
