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
RELEVANT
QUOTATIONS from FLOYD HENDERSON
On the Body, the False “I,”
Role-Playing, Personas, Ego-States, Personality, False Identities, Illusions, “self”-Delusion,
“The Drama of the Lie”
You are that which is, was, and shall be, devoid of body or mind or personality when unmanifested and capable, via full realization, of being free of body identification and a corrupted “mind” and personas while manifested. You are invited to see how all desire and longing and fear can be transcended when you no longer embrace the limited identity of a physical body or the corrupted “mind” or any fictional personality.
If you would realize, then you must understand how this body came to be and where you were during the days prior to conception. Even more significantly, find what you are when nothing is because that which you truly are now is what you will truly be “then.”
[In response to one who claimed that he “has had the same body” for “his entire life”] “Trillions of cells have ‘come and gone,’ so with the exception of a few organs, a chain of bodies that you took to be you has ‘come and gone.’ It must be asked, ‘Among all of those different body forms, which one of those ‘me’s’ would any person claim to be ‘the real me’? What ‘me’ would a ‘mind’ assume to be ‘the one, real me’?” What a distortion to talk of a ‘me.’
If you cling to any false identity, you shall never find truth and authenticity so peace will never happen consistently. If one identifying -for example - as “The Husband” finds the truth, then “husbanding” or “not husbanding” can happen . . . and consistent peace will happen either way.
Understand that persons always take an illusion and either dualistically upgrade the illusion or downgrade the illusion. For example, consider the lie, “This world is real and after death, there is another world that will provide eternal continuity for the body-mind-personality.” Persons upgrade the illusion of “this world” with the promise of another world in heaven for the “good people” and they downgrade the illusion of “this world” with the threat of another world called “hell” that awaits the “bad” people.
Similarly, “I am a man” can be an initial illusion. Egotism can generate the belief that “I am a spiritual man,” which is nothing more than an upgrade of the illusion. Guilt can take the initial illusion that “I am a man” and generate the belief that “I am a bad man,” which is nothing more than a downgrading of the illusion.
The gatekeeper of your prison is, surprisingly, realization. Realization can free you from the roles, and freedom from those roles will free you from the drama. Yet most persons are so addicted to the chaos, so lost in the drama, and so removed from reality that they will never search for a way out of their prison.
They will move about within the confines of their prison and believe that they are free. Few will ever have any desire to be totally independent. Fewer still will take the seven-step “journey” to reality and know true freedom and absolute independence.
Most will fight to the end in defense of nonsensical, magical beliefs that were dreamed up by uneducated men during ancient times. What about you? How free do you want to be? How soon do you want that freedom?
Frustration results from a sense of limitation. Frustration cannot end, therefore, as long as humans are identified with that which is limited: a physical body, a “mind,” and personality. I Am not personal; I have no individuality, so how could I have individual meaning or an individual purpose? For now, the consciousness is manifested, so whatever happens . . . happens. Nothing more is involved.
On “The Mind”
Efforts to quiet the mind or to ignore thoughts cannot succeed with any consistency. Only when full realization strikes, only when the “Oh my gosh!” moment happens - only then does the mind dissolve. What to consider meanwhile? It is true that, if you are instructed to “avoid thinking about an elephant,” the only thing that you can think of is an elephant. So, what is the answer?
The answer is not to try to be rid of a disturbing thought. The answer is to ask when a thought is interrupting the peace, “WHO is thinking that thought?” Only by relinquishing belief in the false identities that inspire thoughts can the thoughts come to an end. Only by abandoning the “this” and “that” in such beliefs as “I am this” (role) or “I am that” (role) will the peace and quiet of only the “I Am” ever happen.
The “mind” is the instrument that supports your personality with thoughts, and those thoughts are the instruments that will forever prevent “peace of mind”; in fact, there is no such thing as “peace of mind.” There is only peace if freed of the “mind.”
Consciousness is rooted in the Absolute. The brain is rooted in the elements. The ‘mind’ is rooted in wrong programming and faulty conditioning and lies and concepts and ideas and superstitions and falsehoods.
You are in a play, playing a role, and believing that the role and the play are both real. Why would you believe such nonsense? Because “your mind” is the playwright, the author of every scene.
When Maharaj said, “You are not in the world . . . the world is in you,” what did he mean? He meant, “You are not in the world,” that is, there is no “you” that is real or in any world. “The world is in you” means that the world is in your “mind” and is nothing more than a figment of your programming-and-conditioning-induced imaginings.
Everything that is said here is to be used to get rid of another false belief until all ideas and emotional intoxication and beliefs are gone and nothing remains but the unstated understanding. Only then can the constant churning and re-churning of the false beliefs of the corrupted “mind” finally cease.
What is that inner resource, that inner guru? It is the vestige of pure consciousness that remains, deeply buried beneath the waste called “your mind.”
“Your mind” obscures the consciousness because that “mind” is so marred with its belief in lies and superstitions and all of its “knowledge,” all that learned ignorance, that it leaves you insane . . . so insane that you don’t know what you are and so insane that you believe the lies and dreams of the planet.
If your body has disappeared, how can any person remain? And if no person remains, how can a mind remain?
In order to know (the great) Reality, you must be sane. In order to be sane, you must be out of your mind.
For their suffering to end, persons must understand the functioning of the totality; must see that all suffering is rooted in the assumption of ego-states as false identities; must realize that they have no “mind” but instead are being driven by the “minds” of others (which they now think is their own “mind”);
must be aware of the fact that a “mind” is nothing more than the storehouse of all the lies and beliefs and ideas and concepts that must be cast aside in order to end human suffering; and must see the limitations of doingness but the timelessness and limitless nature of beingness . . . and non-beingness as well.
In this relative existence, nothing is going on but a breeziness of play, but persons are caught up in a tornado of work, in a storm of seriousness, and in a tempest of drama. So-called “life” in this sphere of consciousness is just a process of functioning, and while the “mind” of a person will dream up notions about separation or differentiation, none exists.
The process just keeps on happening. A belief or a concept, a religion or a philosophy, a state or a nation, a hero or a villain . . . all are just part of the process of functioning. All those are just dreamed up names, and all such dreamed up labels (dreamed up by that accumulation of corruptions called “the mind”) generate a false sense of reality.
The “journey” aims to put you 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 acculturation.
Among religions and philosophies, there is no other means that can produce the necessary brain-flush save completion of the entire non-dual “journey” which invites the dissolution of all of the contamination that is “the mind.”
Ultimately, non-duality is the understanding that has the “goal” of becoming the non-teaching by way of un-teaching.
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:
