ANNOUNCEMENTS
Second heart procedure Thursday AM. Posting will continue Friday if the doc's prognosis is correct.
[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 Subject-Object Witnessing
Subject-object witnessing, or objective witnessing, still involves duality (at least as far as the not-totally-unobstructed consciousness “sees” it).
I, the temporarily manifested consciousness which was once obstructed but no longer is, can be aware of the fact that I am not that which you think you are seeing when you look at me and that I am not that which the culture would label me;
yet from your S-O manner of viewing, that still involves one “seeing” something else, false or not, such as: “I see the mirage and I know it is not real” or “I cannot live with myself/this self anymore.”
Those observations still involve perceived dualities. Not until the next step of Pure Witnessing does subject-object witnessing end and the witnessing of the unicity finally happen. At that point, when the consciousness is totally unobstructed, all that was thought to be either “subject” or “object” is witnessed to be One, to have always been One, and to forever be One.
In
other words, to shift from this stage to the next, it must be seen that (as the
understanding of non-duality becomes clearer) the talk of “subject” and “object”
at this level will have to give way to “subject only,” that is, to knowing “that
everlasting, timeless, imperishable Subject.”
On Pure Witnessing / On finding what “you” are and what “You” are not
Originally, Maharaj (and, yes, I) used a seven-step path. Later, that would be reduced to four steps when he said, “It is not necessary for you to find the answer to ‘Who or what am I?’ It is enough to understand what you are not.”
For those who still prefer the seven-step path on the “journey” to realization, the witnessing stages are two of the final “degrees of separation from reality” which must be transitioned, and both the witnessing and the Pure Witnessing must be “experienced.”
However, it is a necessity to transition each of “the degrees of separation” for full realization to happen. Most on any “path” stop at the third stage (the “religious persona stage” or the “spiritual persona stage”) and never complete the journey to the full understanding.
Shifting beyond object witnessing sets the stage for understanding the nothingness. Then, one can come to know the “everything” . . . the Oneness of it all . . . the Truth. The actual unicity beyond the imagined multiplicity is understood.
The Pure Witnessing can then know the Oneness that comes with the awareness that a tiny “building-block” of energy-consciousness is all there is, and all supposed differences are merely appearances that result from energy vibrating at varied frequencies.
From the platform of the Pure Witnessing, the beingness and the non-beingness can be understood and the “state” of Absolute rest and peace can be seen. Then, the remainder of the relative existence can be passed in the “I Am,” in the “Is-ness,” in the Pure Witnessing “mode,” in the AS IF style, and – finally - by abiding as the Absolute.
On the Absolute
. . . Yet the goal here is not to encourage you to rejoice in that beingness. The goal is to understand that limited beingness, yes, but to transcend even that and then to merge into the Absolute, to allow all ego-states and identities to vanish in the process, and then to abide as the Absolute for the remainder of the manifestation.
Persons, even though they take themselves to be the roles they play, are no different from the realized. All that is happening is that some conscious-energy manifested, became obstructed by concepts, and has not been unobscured (person); or it manifested, became obscured, and has been unobscured (realized).
The exact same providence awaits those who take themselves to be persons as well as those who understand what they really are: the ultimate fate of all manifested consciousness is that it will unmanifest and be re-absorbed into the pool of universal consciousness.
The guaranteed cycling of conscious-energy means that those who believe themselves to be persons will eventually be free of all concerns, just as is the case with the realized.
When the consciousness unmanifests and merges into that vast pool of energy called “The Absolute,” it knows nothing. Ultimately, therefore, it is irrelevant if that speck of consciousness when manifested knew itself or if it mistook itself for the roles that the obstructed consciousness leads persons to think they are.
The only difference happens NOW: persons suffer chaos and emotional intoxication while the Realized witness and feel, but after the consciousness is no longer manifested, the result is the same: consciousness will be unmanifested and unknowing.
As Szent-Gyorgyi said, “What drives life is . . . a little electric current, set up by the sunshine.” If that fact is understood, then what room remains for arrogance, for ego, or for ego-states assumed as identities?
On going BACK TO THE ABSOLUTE
If you complete this “journey,” you’re going to see exactly, step-by-step, how you got from the Absolute state to the false belief that you’re a body. And you’re going to see how to get from believing that you are a body to realization of the Absolute.
And seeing that complete cycle, then you’re going to understand all the cycles (including how the “cycling in” happens and how the “cycling out” happens).
You will understand each step of the “way in,” all the way from the Absolute to body identification; then you will understand why the way to realizing (and then abiding as the Absolute) happens only when each of those steps is taken again, in reverse order.
Only from the conditioned mind of an assumed ‘self’ can the bogus concept of “self-importance” come. When the last ‘who’ disappears, the understanding of THAT appears. The question is not, ‘Who am I?’ The question is, ‘What am I’?”
If it’s entropy and chaos and change you find unacceptable, then know that you are the absolute. Know that you are fixed, immutable, ineradicable, constant, invariable. All that you perceive as being variable is misperception, merely fiction imagined via your “variable mind.”
I Am prior to beingness, prior to consciousness, and even prior to non-beingness. I have passed eternity being That, but for now I just happen to be in movement with other waves and particles of energy during this present, temporary cycling into manifestation.
This “floyd” is nothing more than the result a cosmic accident, an accident that was facilitated along the way by an act of friction. Wherefore “pride”?
On Beingness and / or Non-Beingness
Egotism and programming block acceptance of the fact that, if I (the Absolute) am beyond beingness and non-beingness, then the Absolute is beyond beingness and non-beingness;
therefore, no being (of any kind) exists pre-manifestation or post-manifestation in/as THAT Absolute state. That includes no True Self, no Supreme Self, no Infinite Self, no Supreme Being, and no other kind of self / Self / being / Being / beingness.
On No Desires and No Fears
Nothing remains that prefers either an extension of the manifestation nor an end to the manifestation. It’s called functioning from a position of neutrality. No desires; no fears.
Enjoyment certainly happens though nothing is desired. Nothing is feared since there is nothing to register fear.
The pure, universal consciousness functions from a position of neutrality, knowing that if persons are trapped in seeking the applause of the village, they must also be prepared to accept the scorn of the town as well.
No “good” label is being sought and no “bad” label is being avoided. All is neutral, and all persons can reach that position of neutrality via full realization.
On The Unicity
Understanding the unicity reveals that a pile of ashes, a pile of dust, you, a dog, a tree, a piano, and a plant are no different. All of those “seemingly different things” are one thing. Supposed differences perceived by the human eye and misunderstood as a result of warped “minds” are the result of varying vibrational frequencies only.
Humanity’s (post-programming) propensity for misperceiving everything makes persons believe that differences are real rather than grasping the truth of the unity beyond the wrongly-perceived multiplicity.
Abidance as the consciousness guarantees that duality will never be forfeited completely. Only the Awareness is “One” without any “one.” Consciousness can know the “not two.” Awareness is the absolute “not two.”
If you stay alert to the reality of “not two-ness,” then for the sake of discussion you might take consciousness to be the essence of beingness, the re-purified consciousness to be the essence of non-beingness, and awareness to be the essence of the Reality beyond both beingness and non-beingness.
In the no-concept, non-dual Reality, there is no “one thing as opposed to some other thing”; therefore, the realized understand that “I AM THAT; I AM” can be stated and understood without any sense of duality at all. So can “Consciousness / Awareness.”
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:
