Advaita Vedanta

Thursday, May 22, 2008

THE “HEAVEN-HELL” DEBATE: How Religion Has Always Generated Dualistic Beliefs, Part Seven

An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as revealed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Hey Floyd, I love your site!! Well, I was programmed by catholicism and I'm still having trouble realizing that there is no heaven/hell... I still have a fear that I may create my own hell or that there might be a hell.. How can I deprogram myself from this fear? Are you positive there is no hell?? peace and love alex?

F.: You admit that you were “programmed by catholicism” and you want to be “deprogrammed.” Here is what some have shared in regards to deprogramming:

Deprogramming can involve an attempt to coerce a person to abandon blind loyalty to a group (such as a religious or spiritual or political group). In extreme cases, deprogrammers have resorted to kidnapping and confinement during the deprogramming process.

In many cases, professional deprogrammers have been hired by family members to abduct their children, remove them from whatever groups have brainwashed them, and subjected them to intensive sessions that can involve coercion or exit counseling.

In cases where the deprogrammers are unsuccessful, the result is that the programmed persons are even more dedicated than ever to their beliefs and/or group, no matter how illogical or insane the teachings and behaviors of group members and leaders might be.

Understand that once a “mind” is formed after persons are programmed and “brainwashed” with concepts, it becomes an easily-accomplished task to exercise “mind control” over such persons, especially by the use of manipulation and fear-producing reminders.

If the term “deprogram” is used in its broadest sense, it can refer to the freeing or liberating or enlightening of programmed and conditioned persons by eliminating the ideas and beliefs and concepts that they were taught during their impressionable years. Typically, varying degrees of force were used to the extent that persons were threatened with punishment (or even damnation) if they questioned anything they were told by adults.

Of course most adults are as susceptible to being programmed as children. The process is on-going as adults are fed new concepts by religious and spiritual and political leaders.

By contrast, consider the Advaita teachings which use no coercion or force but merely invite persons to question their beliefs, to see where their blind loyalty has trapped them in ignorance, and to understand the way in which their learned ignorance has removed all choice and is driving them blindly to think and talk and act in ways that are nonsensical.

The Advaita teachings invite persons to see that, if they are driven, they have no choice. [Consider: there are three places you can be in an automobile if you are driven and one place you cannot be: you can be in the passenger seat, in the back seat, or in the trunk. Where you cannot be is behind the steering wheel. Being driven, you have no choice. You cannot choose where you will go, when you go, or how you go.]

So it is with programmed persons. All persons are programmed with beliefs and concepts, so all on the planet are being driven by concepts and ideas that have no basis in reality. Why do persons attack those who offer an alternative view?

As in the case of the professional deprogrammer who fails to deprogram a person who has been programmed, when persons are presented with any challenge to the belief systems that they take to be a key part of what “makes them who they are,” then that challenge will usually only solidify in the “minds” of persons the beliefs that they cherish as a result of programming and conditioning.

Advaita can involve “deprogramming” if the term is used in its broader sense and if it refers to “the freeing or liberating or enlightening of someone by eliminating the bogus ideas and beliefs and concepts that they were taught during their impressionable years.”

The difference is, a professional deprogrammer has an agenda and will not be objective about determining if the readiness to be free is present in the programmed individual. The Advaita teacher is likely to send away far more than she/he will invite to stay and to continue to try to grasp the Advaita teachings.

There will be no coercion, no agenda, and no desire for a particular outcome. There will most assuredly be no threats of damnation or punishment.

To the contrary, the Advaita teachings offer a way out of the mindset that traps persons in the notion that, if they question the nonsense they were taught, they will be forever damned and punished or tortured.

Interestingly, the belief among the religious and some spiritual persons is that the torture will supposedly be imposed by the same “god” who—they are told in a contradictory fashion—loves them “unconditionally.” Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

THE “HEAVEN-HELL” DEBATE: How Religion Has Always Generated Dualistic Beliefs, Part Six

An Advaita Vedanta realization, enlightenment, nisarga yoga site discussing non-duality (nonduality), your original nature, and dwelling in the natural state as revealed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

FROM A SITE VISITOR: Hey Floyd, I love your site!! Well, I was programmed by catholicism and I'm still having trouble realizing that there is no heaven/hell... I still have a fear that I may create my own hell or that there might be a hell.. How can I deprogram myself from this fear? Are you positive there is no hell?? peace and love alex

F.: Has there ever been clearer evidence of why these non-duality, no-concept teachings are so relevant now (relatively speaking) when the effects of programming and conditioning and enculturation have left so many persons so far removed from logic and reason (that is, blocked from living in a nisarga [natural] manner that is neither illogical nor unreasonable)?

Maharaj said that science would one day advance to the stage that scientific facts would be available to prove the validity of these teachings. That day has arrived, but what does that avail the population of the planet when…

…87% in the U.S. think that "good" people who die will sprout wings and become half-bird-half-human entities and that those invisible manifestations of former “bodies” are hovering over them, guiding them, and protecting them?

…when even presidential candidates admit proudly that they do not believe in evolution?

…when billions believe that the earth is only 6000 years old?

…when billions believe that a virgin can become impregnated and deliver a baby and yet remain a virgin?

…when millions believe that a cataclysmic war in the Middle East would be “a good thing,” paving the way for the return of a man whose plant food body dis-integrated 2000 years ago and returned to the pool of elements from which it temporarily formed?

…when millions more think that their bodies will remain in tact forever, allowing the post-manifestation period to be a sex orgy if they die while killing people who refuse to join their religion?

…when millions of persons think that what they eat can make them more or less “spiritual”?

…when, generally speaking, a population walks the planet today that is just as ignorant as the people who thought eclipses and droughts were the result of an angry god?

…and when someone called “a Dalai Lama” believes and reports that a hurricane destroyed an American city because of the “bad karma” of the people there, after which millions unquestioningly take him at his word?

The same level of illogical thinking in those examples also generates the dualistic thinking that leads programmed persons to report that “I am good and he/she is bad” or “We are good and they are bad” or “We are the greatest nation on earth but they are ‘an evil empire’ or members of an ‘axis of evil’.”

All of that dualistic thinking sets the stage for the breaking of relations during the relative existence; for the experiencing of a false but seemingly real sense of separation; for being trapped in fear (and thus easily manipulated by leaders labeling themselves as “religious”); and for a belief that it is the responsibility and the right of the “good” nations to attack “evil” nations.

Of course the fact is that religions did not dream up duality. As today, arrogant, controlling persons who assumed religious or spiritual roles determined what they believed to be “good or bad” and “right or wrong”; then, they codified their beliefs into the dogma that became the foundation of the pagan religions which eventually evolved into the current religions.

Yet it is the modern religions, along with current religious-political leaders, who quite effectively perpetuate the duality that was dreamed up by those earlier ignorant men.

To be exposed to nonsense from the age of childhood to the age of adulthood disengages all ability to behave in a reasonable and logical fashion, results in the unquestioned belief in nonsense, and leaves persons with no ability to recognize nonsense when it is being thought or heard or stated.

As an example of the latter, consider the question submitted to this site that asked above, How can I deprogram myself from this fear? Would you ask how Pavlov’s dogs could deprogram themselves?

A programmed person cannot de-program himself/herself, yet there is a way that de-programming can happen. [Tomorrow, information about “deprogramming” will be offered since that is at the heart of the Advaita teachings.] Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

THE “HEAVEN-HELL” DEBATE: How Religion Has Always Generated Dualistic Beliefs, Part Five

F.: Before continuing, please note these comments offered at http://advaitaclasses.blogspot.com/ where you can find information on the Advaita classes that many seekers are currently enrolled in online:

While the subject matter in the Level One readings might be considered radical by some persons, others consider many of the beliefs that are taught to young children to be fairly radical as well. These readings merely invite the seeker to enter into a mode of questioning, or at least to revisit in an objective fashion some of the beliefs held by many persons that, in turn, hold surprisingly-powerful sway over them.

During Level One lessons, some discover that charges of Advaita being "anti-religion" are unfounded, especially when it is learned that Christ offered the Advaita Teachings during the last three years of his life. In fact, it will be learned by those who complete all four levels of the course that there are “Seven Steps in the Journey to Reality” and that the end of the third step is the religious or spiritual step.

So some of the readings in this section will invite an impartial look at some of the sacred cows in this and other cultures; other readings will present information that will assist seekers in answering some of the oldest questions of all, such as, “Who am I, really?” and “How did I get here?” and “What happens when this life in the relative existence ends?”

That applies to this discussion as well. Now, to continue: The result of religious indoctrination is a tendency to try to live supernaturally. The result of trying to live in some supernatural fashion is unnatural living…the type of living where natural acts are thought to be unnatural, such as religion teaching that the natural act of masturbation (or “wasting the seed”) is “sinful.”

While the Advaita teachings invite persons to cast aside ignorance and to tap into the inner resource that allows logic and reason to direct actions, dogma and doctrine would prefer that persons operate under the auspices of blind faith rather than rationality. The insane results after people are programmed with the dogma of the sky cults is obvious, relatively speaking:

Considering the fact that the planet cannot now sustain the numbers of people walking about the globe, might it not be logical to “waste” a few seeds?

Millions of people are dying from AIDS because of the illogical conclusion drawn by some religions that it’s better to die of AIDS than to use contraception and waste the seed.

Whereas most modern cultures frown on cannibalism and vampirism, it is modeled weekly for billions of children as if it is normal. In fact, the message to children and adults is that such behavior is not perverted at all but that it is “holy” to eat body and drink blood (but only during religious rituals).

While some are told by the one they take to be their “savior” that “a dual-minded person” is unstable in all ways, they can nevertheless accept the contradictory teaching that their god can (a) love unconditionally but has (b) set forth ten conditions that can lead to eternal punishment;

that an “all-loving” but obviously angry god can commit the largest act of genocide and drown all of humanity except for one family (and that is unquestioningly accepted as “okay”) while thinking that Hitler’s far more limited act of genocide was most certainly “not okay”;

that a god who loves unconditionally would need to create a “hell.”

Note, then, the success that religious programmers have at warping those persons whom they subject to their programming:

in spite of how illogical all of the above examples are, and how impossible it would be for “unconditional love” to co-exist with a need for a geographic hell to be used for the punishment of those that are said to be loved “unconditionally,” persons programmed with that contradictory message cannot reason and see the lack of logic or plausibility.

Instead, they will write to this site and ask if I am “positive there is no hell??”

Those separated via programming from logic and reason can be taught that…

all is energy and matter;

neither energy nor matter can be created; and

neither energy nor matter can be destroyed.

In spite of being taught those scientific facts, they can write to this site and reveal their belief that there is a creator even though nothing has been created; can think some creator is channeling through them; and can believe that “there’s only God’s will, so it’s all good.”

Only after reaching the understanding of “no creation-no destruction” can persons begin to get free of the programming that drives them to believe that a creator can exist when nothing can be created or destroyed.

The only thing happening is that certain elements and energy are coming together and later coming apart. Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

Monday, May 19, 2008

THE “HEAVEN-HELL” DEBATE: How Religion Has Always Generated Dualistic Beliefs, Part Four

F.: Since the leaders of the earliest pagan religions began talking of mortals “here” and gods “there,” duality has been the stock and trade of religious and spiritual movements. No single source has contrived and then perpetuated the dissemination of duality more than religious and spiritual movements.

(“Maybe religious movements, floyd, but surely not spiritual movements, right?” If you take yourself to be spiritual but “others” are not doing what you do, then that will lead to your dualistic thought that “others” cannot be as spiritual as you. That is duality. If you take yourself to be spiritual now when you were not earlier, then that is duality and will also block you from knowing You.)

The pagan religions evolved into modern religions that adopted many of their teachings and practices. Included is the pagan tale that preceded the version plagiarized by Moses, a tale of a god who freed his enslaved people, who led them through a desert to a land of “milk, honey, and wine,” and who then returned to his home.

Included too is the modernized version of the ancient pagan sacrament of virgin sacrifice; of cutting out a beating heart; of passing it among the crowd as all ate the body and blood and thereby supposedly communed with the rain god to appease him.

This week across the globe, some two billion self-proclaimed Christians reenacted that vampirism-cannibalism ritual after hearing messages that were steeped in duality and never considered once how perverted an example they are modeling. Yet all three of the Abraham-based sky cults are preoccupied with blood:

the Jews killed animals and smeared blood, the Muslims beat themselves until they bleed, and many Christians display a wooden replica of Jesus with blood oozing from his hands and feet and side along with claiming that they are drinking his blood. They even sing that they have been “washed in the blood.”

After years of being exposed to such bizarre conduct, it becomes normalized in the “minds” of children conditioned in that environment. Is it any wonder, then, that persons programmed and conditioned to think all that is normal can arrive at an adult age and submit questions to this site that reek of naïveté?

Yet their questions are welcome and addressed since the greater wonder is that they have found the wherewithal to question even slightly the nonsense that they were taught and since, in some rare cases, the readiness has manifested to transcend belief in the dualities they were taught, including:

An angry god “there” punishes bad mortals “here” for being bad; god withholds rewards when people are not good; he uses “special, holy people” such as priests and preachers and imans and spiritual guides to define for followers what is considered right and wrong…what is considered moral and immoral…what is negative and positive…and what is decadent and what is proper. They even try to dictate which type sex is okay and which type is not.

Persons who identify themselves as being “religious” or “spiritual” are capable of discussing what they have been told and what they have read in so-called “holy books,” but the Realized Advaitin will ask,

“What do You know that You have never been told and that You have never read in any religious or spiritual book?”

“What have You come to realize via pointers that re-directed your attention away from what you have been told and from what you have read in religious and spiritual books to what You can be aware of by tapping into the inner resource?”

All that said, the religious and/or spiritual steps are the third steps of seven on the “journey” from body identification to Realization. “The Religious One” and “The Spiritual Giant” are the last two of the false personas that are adopted but finally forfeited among those who are eventually to realize.

Understand too that they are merely illusory upgrades of illusions: “I am a man/woman” becomes “I am a religious man/woman” or “I am a spiritual man or woman” leading to “I am a better man/woman” or “I am a good man/woman as a result of my religious and spiritual beliefs and behaviors.”

To work with a Fully Realized Advaitin teacher that understands the freedom available via the nisarga yoga system is to be guided to that which can reveal the truth that You know but cannot access since logic and reason have been disengaged by programming, conditioning, enculturation, and domestication.

It is also to be guided away from the unnatural and supernatural fiction that entraps the persons of the planet and it is to be guided to an understanding of one’s original nature. Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

Sunday, May 18, 2008

THE “HEAVEN-HELL” DEBATE: How Religion Has Always Generated Dualistic Beliefs, Part Three

F.: It could have been seen in yesterday’s post exactly (a) why there is such widespread darkness and (b) why the light has become inaccessible to the masses of the planet:

all 6.5 billion of the persons on the planet have been indoctrinated by a cult, by their various cultures. Further bastardization or blocking of the consciousness happens to six billion of those 6.5 billion who claim that their source of truth is one of the three cults that evolved from the words of Abraham.

Those six billion who have assumed the false identity of “Jew” or “Christian” or “Muslim” have been subjected to a second set of cult-style teachings in the form of religious dogma and doctrines.

As a result, 6.5 billion people are living in the learned ignorance that they accumulated in their cultures and six billion of those 6.5 billion are living in a two-fold level of ignorance because they have been acculturated by their societies and then acculturated by religious leaders and religious family members and religious neighbors and religious relatives and religious politicians.

While the six-and-a-half billion who have been cast into the darkness by their cultures will be seriously handicapped in any effort to break free of the entrapment of their dualistic beliefs, the six billion who have been doubly exposed to cult teachings via religious and/or spiritual movements will find it almost impossible to ever understand the teachings of non-duality.

That enculturation, combined with conditioning and programming, generates a set of unquestioned belief systems. Those persons with their accepted-by-faith-alone, dualistic beliefs will be ensnared in the dream of the planet that eventually leads to the nightmare of the planet:

a relative existence marked by confusion, ignorance, fluctuation rather than stability, and unending shifts between occasional states of happiness and extended periods of unhappiness, depression, dissociation, suffering, and misery. And those subjected to a second dose of cult teachings via religion are the most attached to duality and its accompanying lack of awareness of Truth.

For the 6.5 billion who are sleepwalking through the relative existence as a result of enculturation, they cannot be free unless they begin to question what they have been told in their societies’ distribution centers of cultural foolishness: homes, schools, clubs, groups, etc.

For the 6 billion among the planet's population who are sleepwalking through the relative existence as a result of enculturation as well as indoctrination in the Abrahamese of the sky cults, they cannot be free unless they begin to question the content of their enculturation along with their second dose of programming and conditioning.

They must question everything they were told or read in the places where they acquired their second measure of foolishness and nonsense and dualistic concepts: homes, schools, clubs, and groups as well as churches or temples or mosques or spiritual groups or self-improvement seminars, (and, yes, in some ashrams, too), ad infinitum. Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

Saturday, May 17, 2008

THE “HEAVEN-HELL” DEBATE: How Religion Has Always Generated Dualistic Beliefs, Part Two

F.: There is no difference in the end results of (A) being programmed by the dogma of the three sky cults which evolved from the words of Abraham and (B) being programmed in any other cult. It matters not if the cult is a Jim Jones cult, the Heaven’s Gate cult, the Warren Jeffs cult, other Mormon cults, or the Christian and Jewish and Muslim cults.

Further, no difference exists in being programmed by one of those cults or by any one of the millions of cultures that dot the globe (which are also cults, that is, cultures.) All of those cults have one basic ingredient in common: their leaders and members claim that they know the truth and speak the truth.

In fact, if they knew the truth, they would understand that it can be known but cannot be stated. That, Alex, is why you were told it does not matter what I—this speck of consciousness—am “positive of.” Understand that the key to not realizing is rooted in what “you” think you are positive of while the key to Realizing is rooted in what You Are truly positive of.

To realize that no cult, religion, philosophy, book, or ideology can state the Truth is to be free of clinging to contradictory (dualistic) beliefs that make no sense but that are held in esteem.

To suggest to someone who has been programmed with belief systems that those systems are all nonsense will usually have no more effect than yelling at Pavlov’s dogs to “stop all that drooling! It’s a bell, not meat!”

There is no such thing as any “holy book” or “holy man” that can state the Truth for you, and that includes any and all books deemed “special” or “holy.” And that applies to the various “forms” that Advaita Vedanta and/or Advaita have taken. Thus, it is apropos to address at this point an e-mail received on Friday:

FROM A SITE VISITOR: According to (my limited understanding of) the Gita, I do not act, but rather God acts through me. I am simply a vessel or conduit for God. If I do something evil - and I know that distinctions between good and evil are problematic so let's use an extreme example - such as kill a child, did God act through me and do something evil? Thanks in advance for your answer. I will now enter my own silence and continue to ponder this question, as I have already been doing for a while. Roger.

The traditional method is to ask your question, receive a pointer or pointers, and then take those into consideration. The “mind” that came up with the question can never come up with the answer. If the teacher happens to move you beyond “mind” (and body and personality) then the True Self might eventually know the Truth.

Further, consider the dualities in your e-mail: God and you; evil and good; do-ers (of evil) and non-doers (of evil); and kill/die and live. Already it should be clear that none of the above can be “true” since all concepts—rooted as they are in duality—are false.

And what of the content of yesterday’s post, suggesting that the “I am” should never be followed by any identifier? “I am a vessel or conduit for God”? Really? A rather lofty identity, n’est-ce pas? Where is the neither this nor that?

If it makes no sense to suggest that there is a God that acts through saints as well as sinners; through Eisenhower as well as Hitler; through Hussein as well as Bush (or Bush as well as Hussein)—and it doesn’t—then why not discard that concept which should be seem immediately as nonsense?

Hang the Gita and hang the Bible and the Koran and Christ and Mohammed and Moses and floyd and roger and focus on the key issue, which has nothing at all to do with finding out what they knew (or know) and everything to do with finding out what You know. Please enter into the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

Click IT’S ALL BULLSHIT

and

Click SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY

and

Click WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

and

Click THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace If You’re Out of Your Mind)

and

Click LIBERATION

Friday, May 16, 2008

THE “HEAVEN-HELL” DEBATE: How Religion Has Always Generated Dualistic Beliefs, Part One

Are you positive there is no hell?? peace and love alex

F.: First, Alex, before you try to deal with your concerns about the heaven-hell debate, look at the plethora of e-mails you have sent subsequent to this one, ignoring the assignment to go into quiet contemplation; adding more and more questions that you want answered; wanting your questions answered immediately; and wanting to be moved ahead of all others who had submitted questions before you.

When advised to stop writing and to return to the assignment for contemplation, you even ignored that and were driven to respond and explain your “self.” See that when you feel driven to “explain yourself,” (or your selves) you are attached to one or more ego-states that feel threatened and feel that a response is not an option but is a necessity.

Your question will be addressed, but before you try to deal with the no-concept, non-dual Reality, you might consider addressing a few relative issues: obsessiveness, compulsiveness, dis-ease, impatience, control, and the use of ego-defense mechanisms to support all of the things you think you are but which You are not.

(Does “peace” still apply after reading those remarks? How about “love”? Does that still apply? If not, maybe neither has yet manifested truly.) Now, to your original query.

First, what I am “positive of” is no concern of yours. All that matters in your case is what you, what “your mind,” believes that it is positive about (even prior to objective consideration) and what You (the True Self in touch with the inner guru or inner resource) could reveal in terms of Truth.

Next, understand that everything that is of a concern to you is an illusion to the degree that…

nothing is as you perceive it and

it is all illusory to the degree that…

the specific illusions of “heaven” and “hell” are just secondary illusions which are an upgrade or a downgrade—just illusions that are thought to be either “better than” or “worse than” an original illusion. For example:

“this world” is nothing like what you think it is, but persons took the concept of “this world” and upgraded that to a better world (“heaven”) or downgraded it to a worse world (“hell”).

Next, since you were programmed with Catholic dogma, turn first to the teachings that are ignored by their own pope (the one prior to the present one) as well as to the words of Jesus after he was taught the Advaita teachings:

Pope John Paul II said that people need to understand the geography of Gehanna, declaring accurately that there is no physical heaven or physical hell and that both are mental states and that all persons are currently in one or the other, NOW.

After learning the Advaita teachings, Jesus said, “No one shall ever see the kingdom of heaven. It is within.”

He said, “Heaven and earth shall fade away.”

He was programmed in the temple with Jewish doctrine and talked that talk, but after learning the teachings, he abandoned organized religion, went to the hillsides or homes, and shared the teachings to the few who were ready.

He came to understand that Moses had plagiarized the summative statement about Advaita that had been shared in the Far East for thousands of years (I AM THAT; I AM) and claimed in writing that the words came from a burning bush that was supposedly a manifestation of “God.”

When Jesus tried to correct the misperception that he was “the son of God,” he advised persons: “When you speak of me, speak of me as I AM,” meaning, not as “I am…the son”; not as “I am…a god incarnate”; just, I AM, period.

He said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”

How many of your Catholic instructors understand any of that, much less teach it? (That is rhetorical…do not send an e-mail with your thoughts. They are totally valueless. You need not express them and certainly there is no willingness here to read them.)

Instead, take the above into quiet consideration and begin tapping into the inner resource that can reveal the answers to your question. Yet those answers can only come when all personality (all persona-identification) goes. Why?

Because personality blocks logic and reason. Because dogma and programming and conditioning disengage logic and reason. Because logic and reason—as generated by the sixth sense, by the intuitive knowingness—are the antidote to your accumulated religious and spiritual knowledge, (a.k.a., “learned ignorance.”) Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

OUT-OF-TOWN UNTIL LATE THURSDAY TO SHARE THE TEACHINGS

F.: A new series will begin on Friday that will answer the following e-mail from Alex: Hey Floyd, I love your site!! Well, I was programmed by catholicism and I'm still having trouble realizing that there is no heaven/hell... I still have a fear that I may create my own hell or that there might be a hell.. How can I deprogram myself from this fear? Are you positive there is no hell?? peace and love alex

Meanwhile, visitors are invited to read the information below on the various Advaita readings that are available or to visit the archives. Also, links are available to the right for those interested in a retreat with floyd or for those interested in an online course in the Advaita Teachings. Peace and Light.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOKS IN THE ADVAITA COLLECTION:

The books are presented in the recommended ordering for reading. They may be ordered individually, or in one of three sets, or in their entirety. [The Entire Advaita Collection: all twelve books + the CD $187.00 + S&H]

THE MEDITATION GUIDES

These books can be read in either order since each stands alone. The entries each day provide an excerpt from a non-duality book, followed by one or more considerations for that day. Some read the books from beginning to finish while others use them on a daily basis. Either way, they offer hundreds of pointers that are intended to allow those in the early stages of seeking to begin consideration of pointers that deal with something other than the body and mind issues that dominate most persons. Reading all of the entries in either or both guides will allow the consciousness to begin processing subject matter that is beyond the phenomenal. That will prepare the consciousness to receive the Advaita pointers at the end of the volumes and that continue in a progressive order throughout the remaining books on the list. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

IT’S ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets You Free)

This book contains a series of “propositionalities” that would be worthless except to the extent that they prepare all seekers to become willing to question the sacred cows of your culture. Ultimately, this all deals more with the relative than the Absolute, but one cannot abide sanely as the Absolute without first seeing the insanity of the relative. If one can question his/her core beliefs that are generally held sacred by the masses, then discarding all of the other nonsense of the culture might become easier. That alone can begin the "journey" toward total freedom and total peace. Few will ever be able to discard the minor cows, much less these six sacred cows, but this book is an invitation to begin questioning what is usually taken for granted after years of programming and enculturation. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What Religions Lost)

This book is for the 6 billion+ persons who have been programmed with the dogma of the planets’ religions, especially the three outgrowths of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is also for those who are playing a spiritual role or who have become spiritually intoxicated (which prevents moving beyond all role-playing and Realizing Fully). It's intent is to allow persons on the "path" to transition beyond the religious and spiritual identities that are assumed at the third step of the "journey." The focus is on those three since their dogma has programmed—and corrupted the consciousness of—most persons on the planet, but the overall message reflects the truth about all religions and all “spiritual” programs or movements as well. The content reveals the 16 tenets common to those religions which evolved from the killing of virgins; exposes the contradictions of those teachings; discusses the glorification of suffering; catalogues and exposes the false promises that are made in order to attract and control the masses; explains the way that their leaders' addiction to power drives them to manipulate their followers; exposes the lies upon which those institutions are based; identifies the results of religious and spiritual intoxication; and uncovers the mental disorders that result from strict adherence to the dogma and ideology. If you have been exposed to any religious or spiritual indoctrination, or if you live in a culture where the leaders have been indoctrinated by religion, this one should be read. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your Mind)

This book leads to the next level of freedom, allowing seekers to transition beyond the mind. The content explores the history of the human brain, including the fact that for millions of years, human and human-like beings functioned without any mind. The book uncovers the ways that the brain evolved over the ages and developed an ability to store and retrieve memories. It then shows how the original memories were used constructively but how programming and conditioning changed all that and created a "mind" that most often overrules the brain and generates relative-existence harm and destruction. Similarly, the book shows the way that personality develops during childhood as a means for survival and adaptation but later becomes a liability when those childhood personality traits continue to drive adult thinking and behavior.

Ultimately, the content of the book shows why Advaitin sages for centuries have correctly identified the "problems of the planet" as being rooted in body-mind-personality identification and offers suggestions for being free of all of that nonsense via Realization. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

LIBERATION
This book helps remove the next barrier to Realization: personality. After being freed from body-mind identification, transitioning into the next step begins the process of being freed from identification with personas and being unconsciously controlled by personality traits. This book studies the nine most basic persona types as identified in the enneagram method and offers the way to be freed of the influences of personality. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?

This book offers the opportunity to shift to the next level of understanding, the level at which you come to realize that you cannot die since you were not born. Fears generally begin to fall away after reading this work. The Foreword offers this: “If you find the answer to ‘What happens when I die—what happens after the body ends?’ the result will be that the remainder of your relative existence will be marked by an incredible lightness of being. Persons addicted to chaos will hate that possibility. Those seeking to be restored to sanity will seek the answer until it is found.” Eventually, it will be understood that You cannot die since You were never born. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS

This book is used by many as a primer and companion piece to FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE. “PART ONE” includes answers to frequently-asked questions and provides an overview of terms used during the teachings. “PART TWO” provides information for those who are “close” but haven’t yet “gotten it.” "PART TWO" moves the seeker to a depth of understanding that sets the stage for the final message in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

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

Most of the so-called “Spiritual Masters” addressed all of the steps that must be taken, in a very exact order, to shift from identifying with the false “I” to abiding as the Absolute. All of the steps (or “stages” to use Maharaj’s term) have been discussed for centuries, but this is the first time that the steps have been offered and explained in simple language in the exact order in which the seven steps must be taken in order to move from “the lie of the I” to Full Realization. Most of the content of this book contains the complete set of transcripts from audio tapings of a series of satsang sessions that guided the participants from step one to Realization. Some have said that by reading the questions from seekers and the immediate responses by floyd (all offered in their original easy, conversational format), they have felt as if they were present in the room, actively engaged in the satsang along with fellow seekers. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

Recommended: Use in conjunction with FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE and the CD entitled SPIRIT JOURNEY TO YOUR TRUE SELF in order to have an experiential awareness of the seven steps as you read about each. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as The Absolute)

After following the “path” as outlined in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality) in order to Realize, the next step is to understand the difference in consciousness and awareness in order to abide as the Absolute for the remainder of the manifestation and then be totally free. "The Final Frontier" of the Advaita Teachings is transitioned when the Nature of Reality is understood and when the Advaita Teachings are "applied" on a daily basis even in the absence of any “Applier.” The Nature of Reality cannot be understood until the differences in Consciousness and Awareness are understood. Understanding the Nature of Consciousness allows for abidance in the I AM, but what of THAT Which Is beyond, and that which is beyond the beyond? To be at perfect peace on a daily basis, abidance as the re-purified Consciousness must be transitioned and abidance as the Absolute Awareness must happen. Only abidance as the Absolute allows for the remainder of the manifestation of Consciousness to happen in Perfect Peace. This book will distinguish between Consciousness and Awareness, will define the exact Nature of Reality, will offer explanations that will allow fixation in the Full Realization to happen, will allow for an understanding of the Functioning of the Totality, and will assist all earnest seekers to find the way to fixate in a state of peace from NOW until the Consciousness Unmanifests. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS

This book, the third in the “Advanced Seeker’s Package,” is only for Realized Advaitin seekers. The recommendation is that both FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE and CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS be read (in that order) and that the pointers in both of those books be understood before reading FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS. An understanding of the pointers offered in this book can allow the advanced seeker to shift even beyond SELF-Realization, even beyond an understanding of Consciousness and Awareness, and to an understanding of that which preceded the Absolute. The content of this book can, in fact, allow the advanced seeker to truly comprehend the Reality of “no concept,” of “no duality,” of “no something,” and even of “no nothing.” The Advaita Teachings offer an invitation to be free of all concepts, all beliefs, and all ideas in order to be totally free. Yet how many reach that "state," and how many who reach that "state" are able to fixate in that understanding and truly be free and thereby at peace? This book will offer details of the way that can happen. To order, visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm

AN OVERVIEW: The order in which the books are to be read and how to get them at a package rate:

Consider the Meditation CD, the Meditation Guides, Bullshit, and Spiritual Sobriety to be a “Beginner’s Package,” providing a foundation from which persons can begin to consider realities that are beyond the beliefs which they accept unquestioningly as a result of their enculturation. Used as a group, the works encourage inquiry (which is at the core of the Advaita approach) where questioning has not occurred before. [Visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm.]

Consider Peace of Mind, Liberation, What Happens When I Die? and The Essence of the Teachings to be a “Mid-Level Seekers” Package, each guiding seekers beyond the false identification with body and mind and personality and explaining the basic terminology that must be understood before moving to the advanced teachings. [Visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm.]

Consider From the I to the Absolute, Consciousness/Awareness, and From the Absolute to the Nothingness to be an “Advanced Seekers” Package. From the I to the Absolute can serve as a guide for earnest and capable seekers, putting the teachings into an orderly context that reveals the exact steps that must be taken in an exact order to move through all of the degrees of separation from belief in the false “I” to Realization. Consciousness/Awareness offers the next level of understanding, explaining that which is beyond the beingness and how happiness can manifest each day via the understanding. Finally, From the Absolute to the Nothingness will allow earnest and capable seekers to understand the state that is even prior to beingness and non-beingness, even prior to the Absolute. The seeker who understands the content of this book will realize how it is that—from a state of non-existence or nothingness—everything in this universe (and all universes) came to be. [Visit http://floydhenderson.com/order.htm.]

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