THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Eight, The Conclusion

[These discussions of the Asia-India-“Native American” use of Advaita pointers are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details.]

F.: And as the pure voice of the eternal consciousness continued to speak, more was understood:

We are but one thread.

Peace comes from within when oneness with the universe is realized.

It was seen that power need not be sought except for the strength required to fight the greatest enemy—self.

It was seen that when self has been eliminated, no more power or strength is required.

It came to be known that another can be disappointed if that is required in order to be free of dual-mindedness and to be true to Self.

It was seen that, to be trustworthy, one must first be faithless.

And it was understood, finally, that for Nirvana to happen once more, I need not be with Grandmother nor at Grandmother’s. It was seen that I had to BE Grandmother…had to BE that unadulterated essence that is the pure Awareness without any duality of “consciousness-of” anything. The vision came, the one described at http://www.floydhenderson.com/ , and I saw more than I can tell, and I understood more than I saw, for I was seeing the shape of all shapes living in harmony as one.

So what about “you”? To feel naturally-comfortable with the simple will automatically eliminate the complications and the separations and the anxiety and the frustration and the suffering and the misery that are generated by a complex existence. Realization makes clear that the assumption of ego-states is always accompanied by arrogance and that arrogance is always accompanied by accumulation. Realization makes clear that a simple existence is impossible when ego-states, arrogance, and accumulation are involved. Have you seen that less rather than more is a key to happiness? Have you found the joy of the simple rather than the misery of the complex? Has the peace of the quietness supplanted the chaos of noise?

Then remember the pointer offered earlier:

In sharing a description of the means by which a foundation was laid by a “Native American” grandmother for a search that would end with Full Realization and abidance as the Absolute, do not assume that you are at a disadvantage in completing the “journey” to Realization if you did not have a similar background. It is not a requirement because somewhere along the way, you, too, were exposed to a taste of Nirvana, if only for a moment.

You need but understand. Understand that the consciousness that was called “Grandmother” is the consciousness that is called “floyd” and is the consciousness that You Are. So I AM Grandmother. You Are Grandmother. Your Self IS That Which Grandmother was and is. Your Self IS “floyd.” Your Self IS That Which spoke all of the words attributed earlier to “Native Americans.” Yet all of that is temporary. You Are the Absolute, the permanent, and if you transcend even the consciousness and abide as the Absolute, then the quality of the relative existence that "Grandmother lived" is available to you…in the city, in a marriage, in the workplace…wherever. Today, it is understood that I AM Grandmother (meaning, I AM that which manifested but which abides as THAT which has not.)

Therefore, the topics for deliberation at the end of this series include:

What can you now learn from Native Americans / Grandmother / The Advaita Teachings / Your Self that would generate simplicity and peace and harmony and contentment? I saw more than I can tell, and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing the shape of all things as they must live together in harmony as one.

In what kind of environment is your relative existence unfolding? I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Have you found the means by which peace happens without interruption, no matter your surrounding environment? Earth, teach me humility; Earth, teach me to forget myself.

Have you found a way to move out of the swirling storm and to step into the calm eye instead? Earth, teach me renewal—as the seed that rises in spring.

Do you understand that You Are Grandmother? We are but one.

Have you understood that to abide as Grandmother, as the pure Absolute, is the only chance for peace and harmony in this relative existence? Are you “Walking in Balance?”

So Chaska, thank you for your inquiry and the opportunity to revisit the “route to Truth” that was taken. Finally, might any Advaita lessons in non-duality be revealed in a film about an 1890 event that might be relevant today?

If you watch the film, consider taking the “Anglo-Saxon white man” to be a metaphor for non-Realized persons who dismissed as “devil talk” the non-duality words of the “Native Americans” (who can serve in the story as a metaphor for the Realized). Consider the non-Realized as those who still dismiss the Advaita Teachings as "devil talk" or (as one religious critic characterized what is shared here) "evil words coming from a New Age Agent of Satan." Considerations might include: Is there anything that might be learned today from those ancient words of Advaita that could generate harmony and unity and help eliminate the dualistic beliefs in separation and “better than” that result in war? Have the lessons of Wounded Knee been learned, or have they merely been repeated?

Mass Graves, Wounded Knee, 1890

“Above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace which is within.” Black Elk

Mass Graves, Europe, 1940’s
“Above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace which is within.” Black Elk

Mass Graves, Iraq, present
“Above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace which is within.” Black Elk

Please enter the silence of contemplation.
MUCH OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN WISDOM COLLECTED ON THE “JOURNEY” IS SHARED IN THE MEDITATION GUIDES (WHICH SOME SEEKERS READ STRAIGHT THROUGH RATHER THAN ON A DAILY BASIS). INTERESTED IN ORDERING BOTH AT A REDUCED RATE? Click MEDITATION GUIDE SET

YES, WE SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. New rates went into effect on 14 May 2007. You may visit http://ircalc.usps.gov/ to calculate rates and view options. (Select your country, then in the “weight” box, estimate 1 pound per each book ordered.) Add $5 to cover package preparation, the assistant's trip to the PO, the completion of international shipping forms, and postal fees.

THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Seven

[These discussions of the Asia-India-“Native American” use of Advaita pointers are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details.]

CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. (Continued from yesterday)

F.: In sharing a description of the means by which a foundation was laid by a “Native American” grandmother for a search that would end with Full Realization and abidance as the Absolute, do not assume that you are at a disadvantage in completing the “journey” to Realization if you did not have a similar background. It is not a requirement because it is likely that somewhere along the way, you were also exposed to a taste of Nirvana, if only for a moment.

You were afforded the opportunity to see the lie of timelines that claim to mark “birth,” “life,” “death,” “judgment,” and “eternal reward or punishment” and the lie of body-mind-personality continuity. You had the opportunity to observe the reality of the cycles. You are looking for that taste again or you would not be searching the internet engines that brought you here. It matters not where either of us “were.” It only matters that you clicked on a link to this site and that those sharing in this reading today are all now on the same page.

There is no place that is "more spiritual" than another; there is no “best place” to realize; there is no "one place" where one must reside in order for what happened at Grandmother’s to happen for you.

During the long and trying and tiring search for Self—when it was not even known exactly what was being searched for—trips were taken around the world and always, eventually, back to Grandmother’s old home site, again and again. The same red-dust lane was walked; the stone walls around the old water well seemed shorter than in the days when it was a major effort for a small boy to use a rope to draw up the heavy water bucket and pull it over those high stone walls that framed the well.

The four stones on which the legs of a black kettle had rested were all that remained in the area where Grandmother boiled water, washed clothes, and made soap. The same trails through the woods were followed, to the degree that new growth allowed. The vision that would come years later and described at http://www.floydhenderson.com/article1.htm would be set in that forest. But none of that brought back in a lasting way that elusive peace, that elusive calm, or that sense of loving (and being loved) unconditionally.

So many efforts to “change” were undertaken: change locales, change religions, change partners, change myself. Change…change…change. It was not understood that those “changes” could avail nothing. Seeking out Grandmother-like teachers led to shams instead of a truly enlightened shaman; led to remote places across the planet; led to “holy” books and to “holy people” and to “holy” places; and then led to “spiritual” books and to “spiritual people” and to “spiritual” places.

In all of those places, "floyd" was told that (a) he had to change and that (b) they knew the ways I needed to change and that they knew (c) the means by which I could change. The venues of religion and spirituality sustain themselves by claiming that “they can lead you to change and to a better life.” They never offer to guide anyone to find that which does not, and cannot, change. They never offer to purify the consciousness by eliminating the garbage of programming and conditioning. They never realize that all they are passing on is the ignorance that they have been taught.

After trying it all and visiting so many venues and studying so many of the "holy or inspirational writings," and just when it seemed that all searching was futile, and just when a “hell with it all” attitude manifested, a chance search led to the words “Advaita Vedanta.” That chance happening would finally lead to Realization and to the end of the search.

It was seen why the searching had been futile to that point: more and more and more was being sought and acquired and accumulated and learned. So much effort went into trying to be “this” or to be “that.” Wealth had been accumulated, yet that was not fulfilling. Then it was seen that it was actually de-accumulation that was being called for. After so many summers at Grandmother’s, and during so many visits back to old home place, the most obvious elements that had provided those first tastes of Nirvana has been overlooked: the joy of simplicity, the lightness of “less-ness,” and the freedom of minimalism...all of which had been modeled.

It was also seen that the programming in the city obscured in a child all his later efforts as an adult to find truth, truth that had been available to any observant witness during those summers that were passed in a natural way in a natural setting. Eventually, the path to realizing the truth that cannot be stated began not with any discovery of who I AM but with the understanding of all that I am not.

Once the manifestation called "Grandmother" ended, the remaining childhood years and all of the adulthood years were passed in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian culture. Enculturation led to the acceptance of one role after another, of belief in one lie after another, of a sense of separation from Self...and therefore a sense of separation from all. Via the Advaita Teachings, it was seen that I am not white, I am not Anglo-Saxon, I am not Christian, I am not Buddhist, I am not a Taoist, I am not an Indian, I am not a Cherokee, I am not anything that “they” have been telling me that I am, not anything that was definable by non-Realized persons who want to label and differentiate. And neither are You.

It was revealed that I was not “bad” or “evil” or “immoral.” It was revealed that I Am not “good” or “spiritual” or even “Realized,” really. It was seen that I am not anything that persons name with the thousands of false identifiers that they use after the words I AM. It was seen that anything which follows the I AM as a label, labels that are all dreamed up by persons, is a lie. It was seen that not only did I not need to change but that I could not change from THAT Which I Truly AM.

Then, the pure voice of the eternal consciousness spoke again, and this time it was heard, and this time it was understood:

If in doubt, be still and wait.

That which is inhaling and exhaling is an illusion; truth can only be found in the empty space of the absolute quiet and the empty moments in between.

Peace can only be found in the silence; once found, it can remain under any conditions.

It is possible to be alone and truly like the company kept in the empty moments.

Only excursions into that which is natural (never excursions into dogma) can reveal truth.

Even the seasons form a great circle, but they always come back again to where they were.

The life of a human is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where energy moves.

There is no birth. There is no death. There is no creation. There is no destruction.

There are only the cyclings of elements, air, and energy; there is no body-mind-personality continuity.

Harmony with all things is possible, but it cannot manifest in the presence of inner turmoil or in the absence of Full Realization.

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be concluded tomorrow)
FOR INFORMATION ON A BOOK TO GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE SEVEN STEPS:

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Six

[These discussions of the Asia-India-“Native American” use of Advaita pointers are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details.]

CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. (Continued from yesterday)

A LESSON IN TOLERANCE AND NON-DUAL LOVE FROM AN AH-NI-YV-WI-YA GRANDMOTHER
F.: If the healing effect of the quiet was not being modeled by Grandmother, then wisdom was being shared. She spoke so infrequently that, when she did, her words seemed to merit more attention than usual. If wisdom was not being shared, then unconditional love was being demonstrated. In fact, most of her teaching was by example. It was she who offered my first lessons in tolerance and unconditional love. Grandmother married a white man and they had a dozen children together, all delivered in their small house. Over half of the children survived, and the marriage was reportedly idyllic until Grandfather succumbed to appendicitis. The non-dual-type love they shared was described when a character called “Kirk” recounts what she taught during the summers of childhood days:

His lesson in Applied Tolerance came during time spent with Grandmother and his grandfather. They modeled such tolerance perfectly. Grandfather went to church every Sunday, serving as the choir director; Grandmother went into the woods, exercising some kind of communion of her own. They never questioned the other’s practice; they never challenged the other’s beliefs; they never tried to change the other. They did what they did separately and felt just fine; and they did what they did together and felt just fine. Applied Tolerance. No judging. Total acceptance. Unconditional Love. (See Meditation Guide Volume Two for that passage and further discussion.)

[Please note: There has been past confusion among some site visitors regarding pointers about “acceptance.” As used here, it denotes a sense of merely “witnessing” without efforts to control and without arrogance or ego. It certainly does not suggest “accept everything, including abuse and ignorance and lies as well as the unreasonable, the illogical and the nonsensical.”]

Grandmother’s alignment with nature and Grandfather’s preference for his ultra-conservative, Southern Baptist dogma never created the slightest problem in their marriage. Why? Unlike persons who are trapped in their false selves, their egoism and their narcissism, neither grandmother nor grandfather was searching for an “opposite-sex clone of self.” I seek strength, not to be greater but to fight my greatest enemy—myself. There was no “church vs. forest” differentiation, so they saw no differences that needed to be debated nor any problems that needed to be resolved. Grandmother was fully Realized and therefore knew exactly where Grandfather was on "the path," but she made no judgment about that. No false self, no ego, no narcissism = no separation.

With no differentiation, then no one could be called on to conform to the ways of the other. In their egoless existence, neither tried to change the other, neither tried to control the other, and neither tried to make the other over into one’s own image. How could she have tried to make anyone over into her image when Grandmother was imageless? In the absence of a belief in the duality of “good vs. bad,” Grandmother had no means by which she could conclude that anyone was not “good enough for her.” That non-duality absence of “good vs. bad” never allowed her to classify anything. It never even allowed her to complain about the extremes in weather: when it’s hot it is hot and when it is cold it is cold.

In fact, the absence of duality prevented her from complaining about anything. Never did anyone in her presence ever feel inspired to say, “Why don’t you please shut up, at least for just a few minutes!” Never did anyone in her presence say, “What’s the deal with you—you’re never satisfied?” Never did anyone ever observe, “You’re still miserable although you’ve accumulated so many nice things and have everything that anyone should ever want…and more.” Never did anyone ever ask, “Why are you so judgmental?” Never did anyone ever charge, “You are so self-absorbed…such a total egomaniac.” Never did anyone say, “Could you stop nagging for a little while and just appreciate what you do have?”

TRYING TO FIND ONCE MORE THAT TASTE OF NIRVANA
In an earlier post, it was mentioned that “floyd” would go on a “multi-decade search” to try to find again the level of peace that was experienced during those summer retreats. Is it possible for you to relate to how truly tiring that search can be? Here’s the way it is explained, and discussed in more detail, in Meditation Guide Volume One:

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, ashram’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, incensed, sage’d, Tao’d, Peru’d, Tibet’d, washed in the blood, dunked in the waters, and purportedly purified.

So what about you?” Can you relate? Are you tired of the search? It can end with a simple, seven-step process, but persons typically only turn to the simple Advaita process after having exhausted every other conceivable method and after exhausting themselves in the process. Are you ready to be done with self? Are you ready to recognize the Unseen and Eternal? Are you tired enough to try the simple way? Are you so tired that you can only walk seven more steps? Then you just might be ready. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
THE QUOTES ABOVE ON “APPLIED TOLERANCE” AND “THE ENERGY-CONSUMING SEARCH” ARE DISCUSSED IN THE MEDITATION GUIDE SET. INTERESTED IN ORDERING BOTH AT A REDUCED RATE?

Click MEDITATION GUIDE SET

INTERESTED IN INFORMATION ABOUT THE GUIDEBOOK FOR THE SEVEN-STEPS TO REALIZATION?

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Five

[These discussions of the Advaita-Asia-India-“Native American” unicity are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details. In an interview with actor-American Indian Adam Beach who plays Ohiyesa/Dr. Charles Eastman, Beach noted how the white man’s dualistic judgments affected him during childhood and into adulthood: “Imagine people trying to tell you being Indian is bad, is wrong and that your culture, your tradition is dealing with the devil. It affects my generation. After a hundred years of this manipulation of 'you're not a good person,' it really affects us.”]

CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. (Continued from yesterday)

THE FIRST TASTE OF THE CYCLES AND A SECOND TASTE OF NIRVANA
F.: (Are you seeing that the consciousness that was called "Grandmother" can still teach us all?)

With Grandmother, witnessing happened more than anything else. During walks in the woods, deer and owls and hawks and rabbits and coyotes and eagles and snakes and foxes and fish in the nearby stream and scores of species of birds would be witnessed. Once, while gathering herbs with her, I asked, “Can we get into trouble for trespassing if the owner catches us?” She said something that, at the time, made no sense at all: “Do not be concerned. No one owns the land.” I thought but did not say, Grandmother, all land is owned by somebody." Each morning, Grandmother would go into the woods alone after sending me to the garden where I picked the vegetables that we would prepare for lunch and dinner and placed them in a bushel basket: Let's see...for lunch we'll have okra and tomatoes, corn, and cream peas with cornbread, and tonight we'll eat blackeyed peas, potatoes, and the chunks of smoked ham that the woman gave Grandmother in gratitude for curing her migraines.

Many times at night, while sitting with her in the rockers on the porch, the plaintive cry of a bobcat could be heard in the distance as fireflies passed before our eyes. Grandmother could lift an upturned hand and the fireflies would land on her palm and walk about. On the few occasions when I could be still, they would do the same with me. (It seemed that I could not unwind during the first days of my visits with her, but the longer I was there, the more slowly I began to move.) The rustle of insects’ wings could be heard. Chirping crickets provided a musical background for a small child sitting next to his Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya Grandmother. But a happening one evening provided another taste of Nirvana. (Those early tastes would eventually drive me throughout a multi-decade-long quest as an adult to try to recapture the calm and soothing sense of at-one-ment that came in those early Nirvana moments to a child on retreat.)

It was late one evening when Grandmother and I were using paring knives to strip away willow bark in preparation for making a healing potion. Another woman would be visiting early the next morning, also for treatment for migraine headaches. After the bark was taken into the kitchen and put to soak with other herbs, we returned to the front porch and sat in rocking chairs. I was unaware of how vigorously my chair was moving on the dark porch, nor how still Grandmother’s chair was in contrast. Unconsciously, when my rapid rocking walked the chair to the edge of the porch, I stood, moved it back, and began the process all over again. Later, the full moon would clear the tops of some of the trees in the piney woods in front of the house, and a gap between the limbs of the taller trees allowed moonbeams to strike Grandmother.

I glanced to my right to see that she was looking straight ahead toward the trees and the moon. She was enlightened as the moon bathed her in a bluish luminosity that was still bright enough to reveal the brown spots that covered the top of her hands, hands which looked to be more bone than skin. I looked at my smooth right hand, then at the rough skin on her left hand, and then at the lines that crossed her face. Nature would not allow those lines to be ironed out into a smooth texture ever again. An obscure awareness of something about “patterns” or “cycles” or “phases” tried to surface from the brain-stem, but I had no tools to use to clear the way for it to come into consciousness: even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.

So there sat a child that had not yet cycled one decade with a grandmother that had cycled many. There was smooth skin and rough, there was a day that had cycled into night, there was a moon cycling across the sky, and that full moon would soon complete another cycle as well. There was something there to be understood, but it was beyond my grasp, so the nervous rocking began again. And again to the edge of the porch. And again, a chair pushed back beside Grandmother’s. I looked to the right and saw Grandmother’s blue, expressionless face looking forward into the moonlight, then my rocking began again as I looked at her hand, at mine, and at the moon that had moved diagonally into a higher position in the sky.

With my chair moving front-to-back, front-to-back, front-to-back, I looked again at Grandmother, beautiful now in the subtle color that was fading into a darker blue. Something wanted to be realized, yet I was decades from that happening. Then suddenly, my rocking stopped...and did not start up again. And when it was obvious that something had stilled the chair and would keep it still for the rest of the night, I looked at Grandmother, still looking straight ahead, but I saw a smile form on her lips. Remember the peace that may be found in silence.

Then, I began to feel a calmness. Next, I felt her left hand move from the arm of her rocker and rest itself atop my right. In the stillness, I had finally become…available. The moon had moved so high into the sky that the roof of the porch was beginning to cast us into shadow. I looked down at those two hands and, for some reason, they did not look so different anymore when viewed in the fading light. I looked at her and she looked at me, and she smiled and I smiled, and then we both looked back toward the piney trees and the sky above, and I knew, by nothing more than the touch of a hand, exactly what it was like to love and to be loved, unconditionally. I felt in harmony with all things. Being Indian is an attitude…a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet. Yet that feeling would last but briefly. After reaching the “adult years,” it would take decades for it to manifest again.

Yet for a few moments that night, I sat back, in Nirvana, experiencing something that was indefinable to a small child, without a clue...but also without a single fear or a single desire. I felt, but did say out loud, “I feel whole; I feel complete; I feel safe; I feel happy; I feel like all is well; OK, Grandmother, I have learned another lesson and I am not concerned.” When I sneaked another glance at her, it seemed that Grandmother was even closer than by my side. I could not understand, but that did not interrupt the peace. The first peace, which is the most important, comes from within when people realize their oneness with the universe. I would barely remember being gently shaken some time later, coaxed to my feet from the rocker, guided to a bed from my rocking chair with her arm wrapped around my back and side as she half-carried, half-walked me out of the shadows and through the night and into the comfort of very, very deep sleep.

How about you? Have you had a taste of Nirvana that you might be recalling once again? Was the taste sweet enough to trigger a search to find it and keep it? If not, is the bitterness of not having that sweet taste enough to inspire you to begin to follow “the path” that will lead you there? Are you ready to walk out of the shadows and through the night and into the comfort of Realization? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Four

[These discussions of the Advaita-Asia-India-“Native American” unicity are in response to an e-mail regarding the May 27th HBO presentation of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” You may visit http://www.hbo.com/films/burymyheart/ if interested in details. Here is a summary as well: In the late 19th century, the U.S. government waged a systematic campaign to exterminate American Indians—and nobody seemed to care. HBO Films presents this epic adaptation of Dee Brown's nonfiction masterpiece that brought this dark chapter of U.S. history to light. Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the film intertwines the unique perspectives of three characters—Charles Eastman, Sitting Bull and Senator Henry Dawes—while detailing the sprawl into the American West that tragically affected American-Indian culture.]

CASE STUDY: A First-Hand Account of the Advaita Message as Transmitted by One of the Indigenous Peoples in the U.S.
F.: The ancestors of my Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya (or “Tsalagi” or “Cherokee”) grandmother were sent away from the land they had cleared for farming and lived on for generations when the land was confiscated by the U.S. Government and sold for $1 per acre to a family from Germany. Those Native American ancestors were “resettled” to areas in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Eventually, one "American Indian" family was “pardoned” and allowed to move back south to a small, remote, heavily-wooded tract of fairly-useless land in what came to be known as “Cherokee County.” That family would eventually procreate and it would be in that region where the consciousness happened to manifest in a space that I would someday call “Grandmother.”

The Space called ”Grandmother”

Her family would pass down to her not only their philosophical teachings but also their healing methods as well. She would become a medicine woman, visited regularly by the infirmed, but her curative abilities were not limited to the physical. Time with her would heal the troubled “mind” and emotions as well. With Grandmother, the ancient teachings that found their way from Asia and India were taught at times by word but were transferred more often in the silence of example. In her small house set on a knoll in a dense and isolated forest where I spent my childhood summers, it seemed to a young male from the city as if there was nothing…yet it was seen later as an adult that there was everything.

As for that nothingness, never did she complain about the lack of indoor plumbing or about a too small house or about the absence of electricity. Never did she complain about having to draw water from a well or about having to gather wood or about having to build a fire each morning under a large black kettle in order to heat her water. Never did she complain about the multi-mile walk to the nearest store or about having to use a mule to plow her one-acre garden. Never did she complain about the red dust blown into her eyes from the lane that paralleled her land or about being alone in a very dense forest.

To the contrary, she was free of fear and free of desire, functioning as a minimalist who was completely content, even as “less” marked each aspect of her existence. All efforts by her children to provide “the basic amenities” were refused. Though “nihilism” would not have been among the words in her vocabulary, in practice she lived in what dualists would have called “a moral fashion” without needing a defined, moral code or religion to guide her; though she provided healing for many, she never did so to attain a sense of “self”-value or to give “meaning” to “her life”; and what happened on any given day at any given time was never a result of “preferences.” Looking back later, it was seen that everything that happened with Grandmother happened spontaneously or not at all.

She knew no time; she honored no days with dualistic notions about some being “more important” or “different” or “holier” than others; she honored no person with dualistic notions about some being "more important" or "different" or "holier" than others; she was attuned to the cycles of the seasons but lived only in the moment; she was at-one with all. The manifestation spanned a century, so she obviously cared for her body without caring about her body. Looking back, it is obvious that she had none of the delusions that cause many to confuse three-dimensional things or three-dimensional beings with the real.

THAT FIRST TASTE OF NIRVANA
For a young child longing for peace and for respite from an existence that was plagued with far too much nonsense, with far too many judgments about being “good or bad,” and with the application of excessive punishment when labeled “bad,” the contrast of summers with a calm, serene Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya grandmother became a welcomed balm. To be in her presence in the quietness of the natural surroundings of a forest and in a home where serenity reigned was to be in Nirvana. At least it was for a young child who was already trying to escape an environment in the city that was far too chaotic, far too noisy, far too castigatory in character, and far too illogical and irrational. The concept in India of undergoing “the forest dweller stage” became my experience long before I heard the term.

AN EARLY LESSON ABOUT THE ILLUSION OF DEATH
When in the city with my parents, bedtime was always marred with a prayer which included the phrase “…and if I die before I wake.” That always struck me as a peculiar concept to introduce just prior to sleep, but my protests in that regard were ignored and the lines had to be spoken. That prayer was never a requirement at Grandmother’s; in fact, Grandmother never used any prayers that I saw or heard, but she did offer a hug and a kiss and a pat at bedtime, so sleep in her home was long and deep. Except for one night.

One night, when fears generated by strange noises outside the open window drove me from my bed to hers, she calmed me with a hug and shushing sounds. That night, the noises triggered a fear that “this might be the night that I die before I get to wake.” The thought drove me to seek something to assuage the fear in a way that would allow me to return to sleep, so it was asked, “Grandmother, am I too bad to get to go to heaven if I die?” After a moment of silence, in which she was processing a hurt that I only now realize she was feeling, Grandmother said, “Not only are you not bad, but there is no death, so do not be concerned. Just go to sleep and rest.”

“There is no death?” I repeated sleepily. I wanted to ask for more explanation, for more assurance, but I wanted even more to return to sleep, so nothing more was said after a few incoherent mumblings from a child transitioning from abject fear into the quiet-breath sounds of sleep. It would be forty-five years before it would be seen in retrospect that the transitioning from abject fear into the quiet-breath sounds of rest would be a metaphor for the Advaita “journey” of transitioning from my relative existence that had been marked by imagined fears and unmet desires and “mind”-generated suffering to enjoying the quiet-breath moments of rest, post-Realization.

Can you relate to a child running about in the darkness of abject fear over what was really nothing? Can you relate to an adult still doing the same? Are you ready for the quietness to replace the chaos? Are you ready for the sleep-state level of peace to manifest during the waking hours as well? Are you ready for peaceful surroundings? Are you truly ready to take all seven steps that are required to complete the journey that can take you to that? Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR INFORMATION ON A BOOK TO GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE SEVEN STEPS:

Click FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality)

THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part Two

[Continued from 10 May 2006]

F.: Prior to finding the Advaita teachings, “floyd’s search” covered much of the globe. Certain wisdom shared by a Cherokee Grandmother caused the focus during Step Three of “The Seven Step Journey to Reality” to grind to a halt while spending several years of focusing on Native Teachings and arranging one (useless) meeting after another with one shaman/medicine man after another. Why "useless"? Now, the Original Understanding has been lost as much among the descendants of the indigenous peoples as among all other persons on the planet. Yet vestiges of the earlier logic and reason remain among some Native Americans. (For example, I sat with a full-blooded Cherokee who asked, “How is a Native American to feel when he hears white men on the television discussing all of the problems that are being created by ‘illegal aliens’? Do those doing all of that talking not know that it is they who are descended from this land’s original illegal aliens?”)

Yet the early teachings among the indigenous population would eventually became warped by spiritual intoxication as (understandable) fear of annihilation manifested alongside the notion of a “Supreme Creator-Savior” and overshadowed the Original Understanding of a no-concept, non-dual, unified view of Reality. (Since all Teachings of all philosophies and religions and spiritual movements eventually become warped when marred by personal agendas, it is the Original Understanding alone that seekers should seek.)

Ultimately, the Original Understanding can only be tapped into on an intuitive level, accessed via the “inner guru” or the “inner resource” that is nestled within the primitive brain-stem; however, the ability to tap into that resource requires a process of re-purification of consciousness…consciousness that has been so corrupted with ideas and concepts and dogma that 95% or more will never be able to access the inner, inexpressible (yet understandable) truth.

Some gurus or teachers share certain pointers that can trigger the cleansing process, yet even Maharaj predicted that only 1 in 100,000 who visited him would truly understand...a figure that he later changed to 1 in a million. Eventually, he laid the odds at being almost impossible for most, including those who sat at the feet of the master.

All of that having been noted, the message of non-duality can be found among some of the earlier sharings by indigenous teachers before the original message became warped even among most of their descendents:

ON ONENESS/THE UNICITY
[NOTE: The early Native American teachers spoke of “Walking in Balance.” According to the early teachings, “Walking in Balance” happens when the noumenal and the phenomenal are “in harmony”…that is, when it is understood that the I AM THAT and the I AM are one and not two, not “in conflict” and not “conflicted.”]

“Being Indian is an attitude…a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet; allowing feelings and sensitivities to determine where energy goes; bringing aliveness up from the Earth and from the Sky; putting it in and giving it out from the heart.” Brooke Medicine Eagle

“All of Creation is related...and whatever we do affects everything in the universe.” White Eagle

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” Chief Seattle

“The first peace, which is the most important, comes [from] within when [people] realize…their oneness with the universe. Above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace which is within.” Black Elk

“I saw more than I can tell, and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing…the shapes of things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.” Black Elk

“The hurt of one is the hurt of all.” Traditional Teaching

“The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a midday rain, or scented with pinion pine. The air is precious to the red man, for all things are the same breath—the animals, the trees, the man.” Chief Seattle

ON FREEDOM FROM PERSONAS/FREEDOM FROM self
“I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy—myself.” Traditional Lakota Teaching

“Earth, teach me humility—as blossoms are humble with beginning.” Ute Teaching

“Earth, teach me to forget myself—as melted snow forgets its life.” Ute Teaching

“I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to Your Self; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.” Oriah Mountain Dreamer

“It does not interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.” Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
MUCH OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN WISDOM COLLECTED ON THE “JOURNEY” IS SHARED IN THE MEDITATION GUIDES (WHICH SOME SEEKERS READ STRAIGHT THROUGH RATHER THAN ON A DAILY BASIS). INTERESTED IN ORDERING BOTH GUIDES AT A REDUCED RATE?

Click MEDITATION GUIDE SET

THE MESSAGE OF NON-DUALITY, From India and Asia to the “Americas,” Part One

FROM A SITE VISITOR: I am like Gerald in that I found your site in January and have been reading it every day since then. A turning point happened for me in February when I read your response to Awinita. You mentioned being the “grandson of a Cherokee” grandmother, and I am the “grandson of a Lakhota” (or “Lakota,” or “Sioux” to most). But you seemed to tell Awinita to move beyond where she was and be free. That eventually became an invitation to me to move beyond where I was as well. I had actually stopped seeking and would visit only with "medicine men" or read their words in order to reinforce what "I" thought I knew and who I thought I was.

Many times during my childhood my family and I traveled to Wounded Knee, and I thought I felt a kinship of some kind when I walked those grounds which Grandmother said were “made sacred by blood.” Since a small child I have identified with the indigenous peoples. I thought that we were more spiritual and that only the words of elders could teach me any true wisdom. Then, a friend loaned me his copy of FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE and I saw that I was “trapped” (as you say) at the third stage. I had to give up that identity and the idea of being “more spiritual” or “Lakota” or “Native American.” Now, I am seeing advertisements for an upcoming presentation about Wounded Knee and I wonder why I want so strongly to watch it, but I do. Does it show that I am still “clinging,” as Awinita was when she wrote to you? Is this emotionalism inspired once again by a false identity? Is this something that you can relate to? Thank you for your site and your help. Chaska (now, “Charles”)

F.: Hello, Chaska. If you want to watch the program, watch the program. At least you are clear about having fixated at the third stage in the past, and if you are presently being influenced by an ego-state, it is suspected that you will recognize that as well. If you feel "pulled back" to stage three and witness that, so it is. As for the show, the Realized can witness anything and feel what they feel, but without becoming attached or emotionally intoxicated in the process. You need not avoid in order to "prove something." As far as “can I relate?”: I have not traveled to Wounded Knee, but during the days of “floyd the activist” and "floyd the seeker on a worldwide basis," I traveled to Chivington, Colorado, site of the Sand Creek Massacre. I saw a sign tossed onto the ground that had marked the turn from the main road onto the smaller road that leads to the massacre site. Once there, I parked the car, approached a fence, pulled up a “no trespassing” sign that was there and tossed it aside, climbed the fence, and then walked across a pasture to the site where the massacre occurred.

Then, on the way back into town, I stopped long enough to use a tire tool to drive the stake holding the direction sign to the site back into the ground, drove down the road a very short distance to the house that had been identified earlier as the mayor’s, and knocked on the door. When he opened it and answered that he was indeed the Mayor of Chivington, I asked, "Why would you continue to honor the Butcher of Sand Creek—John Chivington—by leaving that man's name on this town?" The door slammed, and even as I was still banging away, a county law officer pulled up to the front porch of the large white house and was soon escorting me to the city limits after warning me to return only if I wanted to be locked away in a jail cell in Pueblo. (Ah…the peace that has now come since “the activist” disappeared!)

Will I watch the program you mentioned? Sure. If it includes any accurate quotations from Hakadah (a.k.a., “Ohiyesa” or “Dr. Charles Eastman”), then Advaita seekers will hear some pointers that are rooted in non-duality. (As you know, the indigenous peoples had lived in the Asia/India area before crossing the Bering Straits. They brought the Original Understanding with them.)

What might we hear from the Eastman character that is relevant to the Advaita Teachings, if some of Eastman's original quotes are included?

“He (the Indian) sees no need for setting apart one day [as] a ‘holy’ day.” (Non-Duality)

“In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees.” (Nisarga Yoga invites seekers to return to natural living, to reason, and to logic while still feeling feelings.)

“In the life of the Indian there was only one inevitable duty…the daily recognition of the Unseen and Eternal.”

“It appears that where marriage is solemnized by the church and blessed by the priest, it may at the same time be surrounded with customs and ideas of a frivolous, superficial, and even prurient character. Love between a man and a woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not free from desire and self-seeking.” (Consider all of the false selves that are generated when persons re-define themselves as a result of enculturation. Also, the indigenous peoples had no word for “ownership.” Might the concept of “my wife” or “my husband” affect attitude and behavior?)

“In those white men who professed religion, we found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things, while seeking only the material.”

“The American Indian was an individualist in religion as in war. He had neither a national army nor an organized church.”

“There were no temples or shrines among us save those of nature.”

“Silence is the cornerstone of character.”

Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)