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.
"SEEK NOT TO FIND WHO YOU ARE. INSTEAD, SEEK TO FIND ALL YOU ARE NOT."
THE FOURTH DEGREE: MOVEMENT TOWARD REALITY
(Excerpted from a 2004 Satsang session)
F.: “To be disillusioned is to be disenchanted or disappointed. For any person who has ever felt disillusioned, the remedy is to become ‘de-illusioned.’ Only for the sake of discussion will we talk of ‘illusions within’ and ‘illusions without.’ In truth, there is not an ‘inside’ vs. an ‘outside.’
All illusions are illusions, and all illusions are within the corrupted mind. They are the corrupted mind. For purposes of discussion, though, since many students of the Teaching have seen the difference in stages, let’s review the illusions taken to be of an ‘inner’ nature.
The 'inner' illusions involve taking the body to be an actual identity, taking the mental (ideas, beliefs, attitudes) to be real, taking emotional intoxication to be justifiable or normal, and taking false personas to be real.
Through the first four levels,
the goal has been to allow all of those identities and beliefs and personas
that are held ‘within’ (within the conditioned mind) to dissolve. That having
been accomplished, one enters into the Child Ignorance Stage or the Child No-Knowing State.
For full realization to happen, what we must see all the lies that we ever believed about ‘self’ / ‘selves’ as well as all the lies believed about others and about who they are and about all else seen that is supposedly outside myself."
Q.: “Such as?”
F.: “Such as ‘seeing a spouse.’ You were struggling early on with the perceived 'loss' of a 'wife'."
Q. : "I'm amazed at how I've shifted away from all that."
F. : "The shift is not amazing at all. It's so simple when a person sees that all she or he believed was a result of warped programming, distorted conditioning, etc.
But to the point: you have an image of yourself. You also had an image you showed her when you were dating. She had an image of you. That's three images of you to start with. The same three images were in place with her. The ‘honeymoon was over’ when you were together long enough for both to begin seeing that the images weren’t real.
(It's the 'Ted Bundy' Syndrome: "Oh my gosh! Look how handsome! Look how charming." But for those who stayed around long enough or lived long enough to witness how false the charm was and what the unseen, underlying truth was about him, Gadzooks!")
If a person can look at a coiled rope and believe that it’s a snake, then a person can look at a snake and believe it’s just a coiled rope.” [Laughter] The point is, when you ‘die,’ she ‘dies’; when she ‘dies,’ you ‘die.’ Why?
Because that personality you call 'wife' is just the image in your mind of who she is, but she is not that at all. Your detailed description of her would differ completely from a detailed description of her provided by your children, from a description provided by a stranger . . .
from a description provided by her mother and father, from a description provided by friends or by former lovers that she ended relations with, etc. If you ask one thousand people who know her what she’s like, you'll find that there are one thousand images of her.
When those thousands eventually ‘die,’ each of their singular, unique images of her will dissolve. There are as many images of ‘her’ as there are people who think they know her. That's an example of a so-called ‘outer’ image that is an illusion;
of course, as I said, there is no ‘inner vs. outer’ duality since the images of that 'external wife' are not external at all. They are really internal images in the conditioned minds of those who think they are seeing her for who she is . . . but are not.
The same was true in your case.
Thus I say there are no inner or outer images - all images are internal, held in the conditioned mind, perceived via corrupted or blocked consciousness. There are the images of self that are held within the corrupted mind and there are the images of others or other things held within the corrupted mind.
The realized will see only the oneness of it all. Now, let’s return to the vision as we see the eagle enter into the setting and begin to witness.
(As a child, all you could do was witness. Everything else was provided and controlled by adults. Abiding in the Fourth Step level, you will also just witness.
Activities can continue, but they too will be witnessed from a point of neutrality. No identities are operating to trigger desires or fears. So just witness. All among the fully realized happens automatically and instinctively and mindlessly.)
To continue:
In preparation, envision an eagle, soaring above the arch-desert-mountain-ocean location of the vision. The eagle could see a mouse scampering among the trees that border the stream that runs through the arch. If it were hungry, it could swoop down, capture the mouse, and eat.
Furthermore, it might see a stick that is casting a shadow that might look like a mouse . . . that might appear to be a mouse. The eagle, however, is so observant and so knowing that it does not mistake the shadow for a mouse and attack it.
The non-realized all cast shadows. They are not involved with reality at all.
In the case of the shadow, the eagle is not really witnessing any 'thing' but is recognizing an illusion as an illusion. It does not react, attack, or even waste another moment with the image, once it notes that it’s just an image.
Such is the possibility when you are abiding in the Fourth Step level and witnessing impartially. That having been said, let’s move to today’s segment of the vision. Close your eyes and enter the realm of the vision.”
For a time, the eagle soars, glides, and mainly just witnesses. You feel the remnants of the gull; you sense the remains of a raven; you look at “you” seated at a fire and see only a mental image; you look through the arch and see the figment of a body once imagined to be 'you.'
But now abiding in the style of a witnessing eagle, you have no time to think or to contemplate, for you feel yourself being pulled deeper into the universe through a clear-walled tunnel in the remotest part of the heavens.
F.: “Keeping your eyes closed, I ask: are you sensing the detachment of the eagle as it merely witnesses? Is it possible that everything that appears in the material realm is nothing more than an ‘outer’ image registered ‘within’ your consciousness and misinterpreted as a result of all your programming and conditioning and beliefs?
(Images on a screen appear to be real, but the only thing real is the screen and images cast via projected light.)
If you have given up all your beliefs and ideas and attitudes that were mistakenly taken to be the real by your conditioned mind, is it also possible to take everything you see with your eyes and admit that it is not at all what you thought it was?
Is it possible that when the last belief is allowed to dissolve, and when the last illusion of ‘things seen’ is allowed to dissolve, then - and only then - can you turn and see that which is real and that which was not real and never will be?”
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:
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