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. : “So if being in touch with reality restores us to sanity, and you practiced strict religious and spiritual disciplines along the way, were you insane?” [Laughter]
F.: “Totally. I was out of touch with reality, limited by accepting these two ego-states as the ultimate. That arrested my journey at this third level for years. In a book I’m writing, one passage will describe those years when I was trapped in the dogma and attached to spiritual exercises: [Picks up a folder of papers, begins reading]:
In his energy-consuming search for salvation, he’d been dipped, dunked, sprayed, spayed, sprinkled, and neutered; in the quest for truth, he’d been blessed, cursed, cussed, lectured, scolded, and praised; in his pursuit of Life’s Meaning, he’d been communion’d, Om’d, grape-juiced, wined, ahsram’d, accepted, rejected, Mu’d, and yoga’d; in his chase for service-work-opportunities, he’d been pulverized, martinized, and frappéd; and in the endeavor to attain Life Eternal, he’d been baptized, Buddha’d, New Aged, powwow’d, Far Eastern Indianized, incense’d, sage’d, Tao’d, Peru’d, Tibet’d, washed in the blood, dunked in the waters, and purportedly purified. (from “The Twice-Stolen Necklace Murders”) [Huge laughter]
I had as active an addiction to spiritual workaholism as ever existed. If it had led to realization and a life marked by consistent contentment, I’d be recommending it all to you right now. But ultimately, none of that allowed me to escape the duality, and I have never seen any person living in duality who is free.
Krishna said, ‘Those alone who understand that I, the Absolute, am beyond the states of being and non-being realize my true nature, and all others are fools.’ Can you be consistently free if you’re consistently ‘being fooled’? Only by seeing all the lies and then the truth within can one not be fooled.”
Q.: “I’m just having such a hard time even considering the possibility that the spiritual state in not the supreme state. The goal for me has always been to work to be more godly.”
F.: “Then you need to study the early non-dual understanding to learn what the supreme state truly is. Or, you may complete this journey and know. The seven-step journey merely offers abstract concepts in concrete terms to facilitate realization.
At realization, all concepts and all ‘abstracts’ and ‘concretes’ dissolve. As for your working ‘to be more godly,’ what I have witnessed is that persons who believe in a judging and punishing god - when they become godly - are judging and punishing in their relative interactions.
And persons who believe in a god that gives rewards for good behavior - when they become godly - give rewards with strings attached in their relative interactions. Find the existence which has no attachments and no rewarding-punishing dualism.”
Q.: “You don’t believe in a creation event, but I was raised to believe in the creation story in the Bible.”
F.: “Those very same people also raised you to believe in Santa Claus. Do you still believe in that concept?” [Laughter]
Q.: [Defensively] “I believe in the creation story as told in Genesis.”
F.: “Which one?”
Q.: “I said the one in Genesis.”
F.: “Which one in Genesis? There are two totally different and contradictory versions of creation in that one book.”
Q.: [Long pause, confused, thinking] “I’ve never heard that.”
F.: “You’ve never heard anything I will say, and you never will unless you investigate all your beliefs and see them for what they are: ancient myths and superstitions handed down for so long by so many that they are unquestioningly taken to be truth. I invite you to question it all. You speak highly of your sacred text and accept its content as fact without even having read thoroughly the first chapter of the first book. [Q. tightens lips]
Not unusual. I’ve witnessed that to be the case with almost all who quote their holy texts. I invite you to forget what they told you that they thought they knew and find out what You know, within. You take offense when you are told that you must transition these two personas and all others, but identified with these two ego-states, you take my words PERSONAlly. [Smiles] All personalities are limiting. These two will limit your ability to see all else that must be seen for Realization.”
Q. : [Sarcastically] “So what do you know about creation?”
F.: “Ha. I know that what you call ‘this universe’ is a result of a single hydrogen atom manifesting in a vacuum, a process now being duplicated in the scientific laboratory.
I know that hydrogen atom split and paired and eventually smashed into a subsequent helium atom. I know that all is a result of that original movement of energy and that’s why this universe is composed of hydrogen more than any other element.
I know that the process of photosynthesis allows plants to use the energy from the sun to produce sugar and then ATP via cellular respiration.
I know that results in a form of energy that can be used by all living things, including the two plant eaters who would be called ‘my parents.’ I understand that the conversion of unusable sunlight energy into usable chemical energy allowed those two plant eaters to consume plants that would automatically form sperm cells in one and form eggs in another.
I know that this space called ‘floyd’ is a result of an act of friction between those two plant eaters that set into motion a chain of happenings that would result in this manifestation of consciousness. That’s what I know about creation, but none of that knowledge was required for realization! What was necessary for the full understanding was already within me.
I needed to but clear away the debris field of lies and myths and superstitions that had been blocking awareness of the truth. Once the debris was fully removed from an incorrectly programmed and wrongly conditioned mind, the full understanding of the functioning of the Totality happened.
Step Four is where that purging can
happen for you. Krishna said they have fooled you, and that has happened so
thoroughly that you don’t even know Who / What You Are. What can you
possibly claim to know as truth when you don’t even know that?
Either you question the myths and find the truth or you live forever in the darkness of their tales and superstitions and all of the resulting ego-states of being this or that which now trap you in the misery of your desires and fears.
If you can release the attachment to these two roles, you’ll move to the Fourth Step and a significant shift occurs. The first three degrees of body and mind and personality identification have all separated you from Reality. In the discussion of the third degree, you’ve been invited to transcend the two most entrenched personas.
If you can release the hold of these two personalities, then you’ll have a chance to complete the purification process and shift into the fourth step manner of abidance. If that happens, awareness of truth will occur.
And the interesting shift is that, while the first three degrees blocked you from reality, the next level can facilitate the coming of the full understanding. If you can successfully transition beyond these two false identities, then you’ll enter the Fourth Step and be in touch with Reality.
What is called for now is for you to take into focused meditation all that we’ve discussed and allow all you’ve heard to be understood.”
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:
