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

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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?

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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)