Sunday, March 4, 2007

1. QUOTES from FLOYD HENDERSON


On the Body, the False "I," Role-Playing, Personas, Ego-States, Personality, False Identities, Illusions, "self"-Delusion, "The Drama of the Lie"

  • You Are That Which Is, Was, and Shall Be, devoid of body or mind or personality when unmanifested and capable, via Full Realization, of being free of body identification and a corrupted “mind” and personas while manifested. You are invited to see how all desire and longing and fear can be transcended when you no longer embrace the limited identity of a physical body or the corrupted “mind” or any fictional personality.

  • If you would Realize, then you must understand how this body came to be and where You were during the days prior to conception. Even more significantly, find what You Are when nothing is because That Which You Truly Are NOW is what You Will Truly Be “then.”
  • [In response to one who claimed that he "has had the same body" for "his entire life"] "Trillions of cells have 'come and gone,' so with the exception of a few organs, a chain of bodies that you took to be you has 'come and gone.' It must be asked, 'Among all of those different body forms, which one of those 'me's' would any person claim to be 'the real me'? What 'me' would a 'mind' assume to be 'the one, real me'?" What a distortion to talk of a 'me.'
  • If you cling to the false identity of “husband,” you shall never find the True Self, so peace will never happen consistently. If you find the True Self, then “husbanding” or “not husbanding” can happen…and consistent peace will happen either way.

  • Understand that persons always take an illusion and either dualistically upgrade the illusion or downgrade the illusion. For example, consider the lie, “This world is real and after death, there is another world that will provide eternal continuity for the body-mind-personality.” Persons upgrade the illusion of “this world” with the promise of another world in heaven for the “good people” and they downgrade the illusion of “this world” with the threat of another world called "hell" that awaits the “bad” people. Similarly, “I am a man” can be an initial illusion. Egotism can generate the belief that “I am a spiritual man,” which is nothing more than an upgrade of the illusion. Guilt can take the initial illusion that "I am a man" and generate the belief that “I am a bad man,” which is nothing more than a downgrading of the illusion.

  • The gatekeeper of your prison is, surprisingly, Realization. Realization can free you from the roles, and freedom from those roles will free you from the drama. Yet most persons are so addicted to the chaos, so lost in the drama, and so removed from reality that they will never search for a way out of their prison. They will move about within the confines of their prison and believe that they are free. Few will ever have any desire to be totally independent. Fewer still will take the seven-step “journey” to reality and know true freedom and absolute independence. Most will fight to the end in defense of nonsensical, magical beliefs that were dreamed up by uneducated men during ancient times. What about you? How free do you want to be? How soon do you want that freedom?

  • Frustration results from a sense of limitation. Frustration cannot end, therefore, as long as humans are identified with that which is limited: a physical body, a “mind,” and personality. I Am not personal; I have no individuality, so how could I have individual meaning or an individual purpose? For now, the consciousness is manifested, so whatever happens…happens. Nothing more is involved.


On "The Mind"

  • Efforts to quiet the mind or to ignore thoughts cannot succeed with any consistency. Only when Full Realization strikes, only when the "Oh my gosh!" moment happens - only then does the mind dissolve.
  • What to consider meanwhile? It is true that, if you are instructed to "avoid thinking about an elephant," the only thing that you can think of is an elephant. So, what is the answer? The answer is not to try to be rid of a disturbing thought. The answer is to ask when a thought is interrupting the peace, “WHO is thinking that thought?” (That is, what ego-state is feeling so threatened or hurt or interfered with that the false identity can inspire the "mind" in which that false self resides to begin an endless flurry of thought-activity?)
  • Only by relinquishing belief in the false identities that inspire thoughts can the thoughts come to an end. Only by abandoning the "this" and "that" in such beliefs as "I am this" (role) or "I am that" (role) will the peace and quiet of only the "I Am" ever happen.
  • The "mind" is the instrument that supports your personality with thoughts, and those thoughts are the instruments that will forever prevent "peace of mind"; in fact, there is no such thing as "peace of mind." There is only peace if freed of the "mind."There can only be peace if you are out of your "mind."
  • Consciousness is rooted in the Absolute. The brain is rooted in the elements. The "mind" is rooted in wrong programming and faulty conditioning and perverted domestication and xenophobia-based acculturation as well as lies and concepts and ideas and superstitions and falsehoods.
  • You are in a play, playing a role, and believing that the role and the play are both real. Why would you believe such nonsense? Because "your mind" is the playwright, the author of every scene.
  • When Maharaj said, "You are not in the world ... the world is in you," what did he mean? He meant, "You are not in the world," that is, there is no "you" that is real or in any world. "The world is in you" means that the world is in your "mind" and is nothing more than a figment of your programming-and-conditioning-induced imaginings.
  • Everything that is said here is to be used to get rid of another false belief until all ideas and emotional intoxication and beliefs are gone and nothing remains but the unstated understanding. Only then can the constant churning and re-churning of the false beliefs of the corrupted "mind" finally cease.
  • What is that inner resource, that inner guru? It is the vestige of pure consciousness that remains, deeply buried beneath the waste called “your mind.”
  • “Your mind” obscures the consciousness because that "mind" is so marred with its belief in lies and superstitions and all of its so-called "knowledge" (that is, its accumulation of learned ignorance), that it leaves you insane ... so insane that you don’t know Your Self and so insane that you believe the lies and dreams of the planet.
  • If your body has disappeared, how can any person remain? And if no person remains, how can a mind remain?
  • In order to know (the great) Reality, you must be sane. In order to be sane, you must be out of your mind.
  • For their suffering to end, persons must understand the functioning of the totality; must see that all suffering is rooted in the assumption of ego-states as false identities; must realize that they have no “mind” but instead are being driven by the “minds” of others (which they now think is their own "mind"); must be aware of the fact that a “mind” is nothing more than the storehouse of all the lies and beliefs and ideas and concepts that must be cast aside in order to end human suffering; and must see not only the limitations of doingness but the timelessness and limitless nature of beingness ... and non-beingness as well.
  • In this relative existence, nothing is going on but a breeziness of play, but persons are caught up in a tornado of work, in a storm of seriousness, and in a tempest of drama.
  • So-called “life” in this sphere of consciousness is just a process of functioning, and while the “mind” of a person will dream up notions about separation or differentiation, none exists. The process just keeps on happening.
  • A belief or a concept, a religion or a philosophy, a state or a nation, a hero or a villain ... all are just part of the process of functioning. All those are just dreamed up names, and all such dreamed up labels (dreamed up by that accumulation of corruptions called "the mind") generate a false sense of reality.
  • The "journey" aims to put you fully in touch with reality. To be out of touch with reality is to be insane.
  • This "journey" is about getting in touch with reality in order to be free of the bondage of the illusions and falsehoods of a "mind" exposed to years of enculturation.
  • Among religions and philosophies, there is no other means that can produce the necessary brain-flush save completion of the entire Advaita “journey” which invites the dissolution of all of the contamination that is “the mind.”
  • Ultimately, Advaita Vedanta is the Teaching that has the "goal" of becoming the non-teaching by way of un-teaching.
  • You should see by now that there is no such thing as “your mind.” You were born with a brain and like all life-forms on the planet, it’s all you needed for the body / elements to function. To your detriment, your culture decided otherwise.
  • "They" decided you needed their “knowledge,” which is really nothing other than their learned ignorance (including "their" ideas and beliefs that were rooted in superstitious and mythical explanations for what they could not explain factually or scientifically). In pumping those lies into you, they created a “mind”—a repository of ideas and beliefs and non-truths. It contains what was put into their "minds" - which they never questioned even once - and then passed along faithfully and dutifully and, unfortunately, to you. Nothing in it came from you or from You.
  • "They" dreamed it all up, "they" forced you to accept their concepts as a child, you have internalized their beliefs into a “mind,” and you now allow their fiction to define your beliefs, your values and your “mind.”
  • In fact, most of the (dualistic) beliefs in your "mind" are the beliefs of the earliest self-appointed “religious or tribal or spiritual leaders” who dreamed up those beliefs, adopted them, and then passed them on. And all those values were based in duality, in terms of what those persons decided was “right or wrong” and “good or bad.”
  • Which terms they used to label other persons was determined by their agenda to control the masses and to gain benefit from that control.
  • Use the brain. Use the intuitive sixth-sense. Sense the fourth dimension beyond the three dimensions of a body’s height, width and depth. But abandon any notion that a mind is real or that you have a mind that is yours. It is "theirs," has always been "theirs," and shall always be "theirs" if you do not abandon it and then realize; otherwise, those persons can still reach forward—from millennia ago or from days ago—and control you via the compilation of that mass of learned ignorance and contamination called “your mind.”
  • Religions want to "cleanse" your mind. Spiritual movements want to "purify" your mind or "heal" your mind. Many professionals want to “straighten out the thinking” of your mind. Many groups want to move you from “wrong thinking" to “right thinking.” Some want to guide you to your “right mind.” Some want to teach you to "halt the constant movement" of your mind. None of those have a clue that they are missing the point completely: nothing needs to be done to your "mind" and nothing needs to happen to benefit your "mind." The mind is illusion.
  • One may as well go to a desert and try to benefit and improve or cleanse or purify or straighten out a mirage.
  • How can anyone cleanse a mirage, purify a mirage, heal a mirage, straighten out a mirage, make a mirage that is wrong into a mirage that is right, or stop mirages? It is impossible. The mind will dissolve if you see every lie that is stored in it.
  • Then the brain, the sixth-sense and the intuition will move you through this relative existence, and you will live the remainder of it in a natural fashion rather than in an unnatural fashion or in a supernatural fashion that is dominated by magical thinking that results from a wrongly-programmed mind.


On Religious and/or Spiritual Ego-States

  • All human suffering is rooted in not living naturally, and all suffering persons (i.e., the non-Realized) are living unnaturally or supernaturally. Those living unnaturally can be recognized by their self-destructive behaviors. Those living supernaturally can be recognized by their magical thinking, by their belief in modernized versions of ancient gods, by their acceptance of ancient myths and superstitions as fact, by their disdain for scientific evidence, and by their belief in non-factual explanations for naturally-occurring events.
  • Unnatural living and supernatural living are both tiresome and exhausting, but natural living is easy.

  • This Teaching invites you to question everything. Faith in dogma requires that you question nothing. The "journey" only begins when questioning begins. The "journey" only continues if questioning continues.
  • Pray all the prayers that you think you need to pray; knell, bend over, stoop, or lie prostrate as much as you think you need to kneel, bend over, stoop, or lie prostrate; read all the “holy” books that you think you need to read; visit all the “sacred” sites or “sacred” men that you think you need to visit; chant or hum every chant or hum you think you need to chant or hum; ring every bell you think you need to ring; and burn every stick of incense that you think you need to burn. But when you are done with all of that, realize that you—and all persons who are fixated in a stage and are playing their religious or spiritual roles—are mistaking the dawn for the noon. Realize that praying and knelling and bending over and stooping and lying prostrate and reading and visiting and chanting and humming and ringing and burning (and every other external thing you try to use to be more spiritual or to try to demonstrate how spiritual you are) will actually block you from finding the truth which can only be found within after certain pointers are taken into quiet and solitary consideration.
  • One must either find a working philosophy or be doomed to adopt "their" ideology instead, and both the historical and current evidence show that nothing is more destructive, relatively speaking, than buying into "their" ideology.

  • It eventually had to be asked, “WHO wants to be a ‘Supreme Self’? Who is making the dualistic claims that 'I am free of all concepts' and 'I am freed from assuming identities' but then claiming as well that 'I Am the Supreme'?”
  • Focusing on the “I Am” is a tool that is only effective after body identification is forfeited. Then, the “I Am” can be used to negate the mind which supports the personality that wants to add words after the “I Am”: “I am spiritual”; “I am a teacher”; “I am good”; “I Am the Supreme.” The only reason for the pointer to “focus only on the ‘I Am’” is to divert the focus from the false identities that have been assumed, from the talk about “I am so-and-so.” Once the last two personas (“The Religious One” and “The Spiritual Giant”) have been cast aside, the use of the “I Am” will also end, right along with the former belief in “The User of Spiritual Tools.”
  • Supernatural living leads to magical thinking which convinces persons that they can have access to power that will allow them to control. The master addiction among persons is a desire to control, and the secondary addiction is the addiction to power, which they think will allow them to control. The result among persons is belief in the illusion of power/powers and an overwhelming desire to control others, to control their surroundings, or to control other nations. When persons become religious or spiritual, they try to use their power (or superpower) to control their racing, variable, tortuous “minds” or to control the behavior and "minds" of others (all of which is impossible since what they are trying to control is a mirage). The more they believe they have power, the more they believe they can affect when it rains, can influence who heals, can impact the paths of hurricanes, can control who wins wars and who loses, can control who receives blessings and who is cursed, ad infinitum. Supernatural beliefs, therefore, are the compost from which spring the illusions of megalomania, egomania, and self-aggrandizement; therefore, while religion and spirituality are not to be avoided, they are to be transitioned. They are but one step along a "path" to the freedom that happens when the understanding of "natural" displaces unnatural and supernatural thinking.
  • In order to be reincarnated or to have a resurrection and life eternal, you would have to be a body and a mind and you would have to "have" a personality.
  • Here, the consciousness speaks to you of the no-self, no-Self, no-SELF Reality. All these Teachings are just words and concepts that can guide "you to You" and then to the no-word silence and the no-concept bliss. If your decades of religious effort and spiritual practices had resulted in the ability to understand the truth that cannot be stated, to be comfortable in the silence, and to be content in the awareness of Wholeness and Completion, then you would not be here. Do not disparage, however, those decades of effort; instead, transition your religious and spiritual roles just as you must transition beyond your belief in all the other roles you've played. Otherwise, you will continue to stand in the subdued light of dawn while insanely believing that you are being bathed in the full light of noon.
  • In response to, "Floyd, millions of people who believe in Him can't be wrong!": Indeed, your notion is accurate; in truth, it is not millions who have been deluded in their beliefs. It is trillions upon trillions.

  • There are no "different persons" at "different levels" of enlightenment or at different levels of goodness or badness. There are quantities of manifested conscious-energy that are obscured by varying quantities of concepts. Either way, ultimately, all of the manifested conscious-energy (obscured or not) will unmanifest and merge into the vast pool of conscious-energy that is not manifested, and that's that/THAT.


On the Child Ignorance Stage

  • Among persons, only a child—existing in a pre-programming, pre-conditioning state—will witness without judgment, without thoughts, and without beliefs based in duality. For adults to be able to witness without judgment, without thoughts, and without beliefs based in duality requires a shift “back” to the state of child ignorance by casting aside all of the nonsense which has been generated by conditioning and programming and enculturation. Nothing is more at peace than a healthy child if its physical needs have been met and if it is free of contaminants. As long as health and food and shelter requirements have been met, perfect peace happens. Contentment can only happen in that pre-mind state of existence. Realized, contentment happens as a result of "returning to" that no-mind state. That is to say, contentment happens as a result of removing the layers of concepts that obscure consciousness so that it is as available as it was during the brief period of childhood that happened prior to the obscuring of the consciousness. Why should one who currently takes himself to be "an adult" settle for less contentment than that experienced by a child?
  • That which the Childhood stage offers as the consciousness manifests and eventually deteriorates to identification with the "I" is nothing more than an opportunity to know that you exist; therefore, as you take the steps from the "I" to abidance as the Absolute, this stage is again nothing more than an opportunity for you know that you exist (that is, to know "I AM" and "I AM" only).
  • A fictional mind had not yet resulted from hearing the lies about who or what you are and had not yet assumed any false role or identity or personality. All merely happened via natural instinct and body chemistry rather than programming and conditioning.
  • Here is why worldwide ignorance has not been stamped out and will not be stamped out: persons believe that the planet-wide epidemic of ignorance could be solved if only people would acquire more knowledge. The Advaitin understands that the knowledge is the ignorance and that the ignorance is the knowledge. The ignorance is that which the masses have been taught and have learned, and their ignorance will only be compounded if more of the same type knowledge is injected into the equation. Ignorance could be stamped out if persons were to forfeit their revered beliefs and ideas and concepts and dogma. Since that happens so rarely but is a prerequisite for Realization, only a few will ever Realize (that is, be restored to sanity). There is no lever to pull or handle to push that can produce a brain-flush…nothing other than the Advaita process. (Were the brain to be flushed of all of the concepts and beliefs that make up the "mind," then the peace of the Child Ignorance Stage could happen. Unlike adult-age ignorance, the Child-age Ignorance Stage, which is really a misnomer, actually refers to the "no-mind," pre-programming, pre-knowledge, pre-ignorance state. Children early on don't really have the ignorance/knowledge that adults must be freed of if they are to return to this former, peaceful stage.)
  • The level of peace that a child enjoys in that state of "ignorance," prior to programming and conditioning and being assigned false identities, is never realized again in its lifetime, in most cases. The exceptions are those such as you, the ones who take these steps and return to that "state" of peace that exists when we are once again free of learned ignorance and the influence of the illusions of the body-mind-personality triad.


On Subject-Object Witnessing

  • Subject-object witnessing, or objective witnessing, still involves duality (at least as far as the not-totally-unobstructed consciousness "sees" it). I, the consciousness which was once obstructed but no longer is, can be aware of the fact that I am not that which you think you are seeing when you look at me and that I am not that which the culture would label me; yet from your S-O manner of viewing, that still involves one "seeing" something else, false or not, such as: "I see the mirage and I know it is not real" or "I cannot live with myself/this self anymore." Those observations still involve perceived dualities. Not until the next step of Pure Witnessing does subject-object witnessing end and the witnessing of the unicity finally happen. At that point, when the consciousness is totally unobstructed, all that was thought to be either "subject" or "object" is witnessed to be One, to have always been One, and to forever be One. In other words, to shift from this stage to the next, it must be seen that (as the understanding of non-duality becomes clearer) the talk of "subject" and "object" at this level will have to give way to "subject only," that is, to knowing "that everlasting, timeless, imperishable Subject."


On Pure Witnessing/ True Self

  • There are seven-steps on the “journey” to Realization. The witnessing stages are two of the final “degrees of separation from reality” that must be transitioned, and both the witness and the Pure Witness must be “experienced.” However, it is a necessity to transition each of “the seven degrees of separation” for Full Realization to happen. Most on any "path" stop at the third stage (the "religious persona stage" or the "spiritual persona stage") and never complete the journey to the full understanding.
  • Shifting beyond object witnessing sets the stage for understanding the nothingness. Then, the True Self can come to know the "everything"...the Oneness of it all...the Truth. The actual unicity beyond the imagined multiplicity is understood.
  • The Pure Witness—the True Self—can then know the Oneness that comes with the awareness that a tiny "building-block" of energy-consciousness is all there is, and all supposed differences are merely appearances that result from energy vibrationing at varied frequencies. From the platform of the Pure Witness, the beingness and the non-beingness can be understood and the "state" of Absolute rest and peace can be seen. Then, the remainder of the relative existence can be passed in the "I Am," in the "Is-ness," in the Pure Witness "mode," in the AS IF style, and—finally—by abiding as the Absolute.

On the Absolute

  • ...Yet the goal here is not to encourage you to rejoice in that beingness. The goal is to know that beingness, yes, but to transcend even that and then to merge into the Absolute, to allow all ego-states and identities to vanish in the process, and then to abide as the Absolute for the remainder of the manifestation.
  • Persons, even though they take themselves to be the roles they play, are no different from the Realized. All that is happening is that consciousness manifested, became obstructed by concepts, and has not been unobscured (person) or it manifested, became obscured, and has been unobscured (Realized). The exact same providence awaits those who take themselves to be persons as well as those who know What They Really Are: the untimate fate of all manifested consciousness is that it will unmanifest and be re-absorbed into the pool of universal consciousness. The guaranteed cycling of conscious-energy means that those who believe themselves to be persons will eventually be free of all concerns, just as is the case with the Realized. When the consciousness unmanifests and merges into that vast pool of energy called “The Absolute,” it knows nothing. Ultimately, therefore, it is irrelevant if that speck of consciousness when manifested knew Itself or if it mistook itself for the roles that the obstructed consciousness leads persons to think they are. The only difference happens NOW: persons suffer chaos and emotional intoxication while the Realized witness and feel, but after the consciousness is no longer manifested, the result is the same: consciousness will be unmanifested and unknowing. As Szent-Gyorgyi said, “What drives life is … a little electric current, set up by the sunshine.” If that fact is understood, then what room remains for arrogance, for ego, or for ego-states assumed as identities?
  • BACK TO THE ABSOLUTE: If you complete this "journey," you’re going to see exactly, step-by-step, how you got from the Absolute state to the false belief that you’re a body. And you’re going to see how to get from believing that you are a body to Realization of the Absolute. And seeing that complete cycle, then you’re going to understand all the cycles (including how the "cycling in" happens and how the "cycling out" happens). You will understand each step of the "way in," all the way from the Absolute to body identification; then you will understand why the way to Realizing (and abiding as) the Absolute happens only when each of those steps is taken again, in reverse order.
  • Only from the conditioned mind of an assumed 'self' can self-importance come. When the last ‘who’ disappears, the understanding of THAT appears. The question is not, 'Who am I?' The question is, 'What am I'?”
  • If it's entropy and chaos and change you find unacceptable, then know that You Are the Absolute. Know that You Are fixed, immutable, ineradicable, constant, invariable. All that you perceive as being variable is misperception, merely fiction imagined via your "variable mind."
  • I Am prior to beingness, prior to consciousness, and even prior to non-beingness. I have passed eternity being That, but for now I just happen to be in movement with other waves and particles of energy during this present temporary cycling into manifestation. This "floyd" is nothing more than the result a cosmic accident, an accident that was facilitated along the way by an act of friction. Wherefore "pride"?

For a book that offers a detailed guide through the seven steps required to shift from identification with the false "I" to abiding as the Absolute, visit:

http://floydhenderson.com/iamabsolute.htm &

http://floydhenderson.com/theessence.htm

On Beingness and/or Non-Beingness

  • Egotism and programming block acceptance of the fact that, if I (the Absolute) am beyond beingness and non-beingness, then the Absolute is beyond beingness and non-beingness; therefore, no being (of any kind) exists pre-manifestation or post-manifestation in/as THAT Absolute state. That includes no True Self, no Supreme Self, no Infinite Self, no Supreme Being, and no other kind of self/Self/being/Being/beingness.

On No Desires and No Fears

  • Nothing remains that prefers either an extension of the manifestation nor an end to the manifestation. It's called functioning from a position of neutrality. No desires; no fears.
  • Enjoyment certainly happens though nothing is desired. Nothing is feared since there is nothing to register fear. The consciousness functions from a position of neutrality, knowing that if persons are trapped in seeking the applause of the village, they must also be prepared to accept the scorn of the town as well.
  • No “good” label is being sought and no “bad” label is being avoided. All is neutral, and all persons can reach that position of neutrality via Full Realization.

On The Unicity

  • Understanding the unicity reveals that a pile of ashes, a pile of dust, you, a dog, a tree, a piano, and a plant are no different. All of those “seemingly different things” are one thing. Supposed differences perceived by the human eye and misunderstood as a result of warped “minds” are the result of varying vibrational frequencies only. Humanity’s (post-programming) propensity for misperceiving everything makes persons believe that differences are real rather than grasping the truth of the unity beyond the wrongly-perceived multiplicity.
  • Abidance as the consciousness guarantees that duality will never be forfeited completely. Only the Awareness is “One” without any “one.” Consciousness can know the "not two." Awareness is the absolute "not two."
  • If you stay alert to the reality of "not two-ness," then for the sake of discussion you might take consciousness to be the essence of beingness, the re-purified consciousness to be the essence of non-beingness, and awareness to be the essence of the Reality beyond both beingness and non-beingness.
  • In the no-concept, non-dual Reality, there is no "one thing as opposed to some other thing." Therefore, the Advaitin understands that "I AM THAT; I AM" can be stated and understood without any sense of duality at all. So can "Consciousness/Awareness."

On Love

  • What persons call "love" is the most magnificent experience of all; it is also the most horrendous experience of all. With such duality, how can that possibly be taken for the real? As for feeling or emotion, if love happens as a feeling, take the ride and watch the feelings rise and fall; if love happens as an emotion—that is, if it is being "experienced" by a person in an ego-state—prepare for war.

  • If there is no "do-er," and if there is no identity that is real, then there is no "lover" either. If there is no lover, then find WHO thinks she/he is experiencing anything.

  • Persons desiring to know what love is might benefit more (relatively speaking, of course) if they were able to understand what love is not.
  • Ego is believing that there’s a vast multiplicity arranged in a hierarchy and that you’re the pinnacle; humility is knowing that you’re nothing, no-thing; love is knowing that You, with a capital ‘Y,’ Are everything. (That said, understand that ego, humility, and love are merely concepts, thorns that can be used to remove thorns.)
  • Can you, from the position of 'As If Living' that follows Full Realization, feel and share Unconditional Love? Not only can You, but You shall. In fact, once again, no choice will be involved. It will just happen...spontaneously and unequivocally.

On Nisarga Yoga, Natural Living

  • The Advaita poet William Shakespeare wrote: “The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre observe degree, priority, and place. Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, office, and custom, in all line of order.” The Nisarga Yoga approach offers a direct route to the understanding that results in a natural way of AS IF living (that is, a natural way of functioning). That means living/functioning spontaneously for the remainder of the manifestation, knowing that the "world" is illusory but living as if any of "all this" matters. (Thus, employment can happen even without the assumption of an "employee" persona.) Natural living recognizes that the laws of nature have the right of "insisture": either (a) life is lived naturally according to the “customs” of the universe or (b) persons violating the natural “order” will collapse and self-destruct. The Realized move through the relative existence in a manner that is fixed by nature even though they appear to be moving as they please. Rather than trying to exert any force, they accept that happenings happen. Among the Realized, nature has “priority” over efforts to control or manipulate. The Realized abide within the framework of the natural laws that have “insisture,” understanding that all is to happen per the natural order and understanding that all is to happen in “proportion.” Persons, on the other hand, seek to control and manipulate so they will not have to accept “proportion.” They work to accumulate and to have more and to appear to be greater than what is proportional. They imagine that they have an actual need for more than is proportional or necessary. The Realized move along lines that are “customary” rather than along paths that are unnatural or supernatural. To think supernaturally is to think magically, and magical thinking is delusional.

On Creation and Creators

  • Either there is One, or there is duality and/or multiplicity. Either there is a prime cause and creation (and therefore a prime causer and creator) or there is neither creation nor destruction. Science has proved that there is neither creation nor destruction. All is energy/matter, and energy/matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Wherefore a causer or a creator in that reality? The cause of all is…all. Where is there any possibility of a creator (or a creator-sustainer-destroyer god) when That Which Is Has Always Been, when That cannot have been created, when That cannot be destroyed, and when all merely cycles...or not? Persons who are programmed to believe that their bodies-minds-personalities shall last "for infinity after death" do not pause to consider that, if infinity is a possibility in --> that "direction" on their timelines, then it must also be a possibility in <-- that "direction" on their timelines. Infinite is infinite. Whatever has the ability to exist "forever after" also had to have the ability to exist "forever before."

For more on this understanding, see Dennis Waite's book

Back to the Truth: 5000 Years of Advaita at:

http://advaita.org.uk/

For more on the understanding that "no god created man...it was man who created god," read Floyd's book

Spiritual Sobriety: Recovering What Religions Lost at:

http://www.floydhenderson.com

or

http://www.floydhenderson.com/spiritualsobriety.htm

On Emotions vs. Feelings

  • The Realized can feel, but without attachment and without a chain of reactions that result from emotional intoxication. Feelings among the Realized are merely witnessed as they rise and fall. Emotions, on the other hand, are "experienced" only by persons—by those believing in their false roles and assumed ego-states. As a result of their persona-generated emotions, they are continually in a state of emotional intoxication and are constantly reacting and over-reacting to what they take to be "personal experiences" that are driven by desires and/or fears. Contrary to some charges, the Advaita understanding does not result in the Realized "living a robotic existence." It does result in the remainder of the manifestation happening in a fashion that is free of mental, emotional, and spiritual intoxication.

On "Relationships"

  • The egotism that always accompanies the assumption of false identities never shows up more often than when you believe that you are in a "relationship." First, in a reality which is non-dual in nature, how can "one thing" possibly relate to "another thing"? ("Advaita" does mean, "one without a second" or "not two.") Next, consider the history of the expectations that you have traditionally brought to "your relationships": besides wanting a clone of self, you expect "partners" to conduct themselves in a fashion that you find "right" and "acceptable." And what you think is "right" and "acceptable" is generally based in what your parents taught you is "right" and "acceptable." Is there any greater degree of insanity than your expecting a "partner" to conform to the expectations of the very persons who taught you the majority of the lies and the nonsense that you believe?

For a treatise that exposes the roots of problems in "relationships" and offers solutions, visit:

http://floydhenderson.com/castinglight.htm

  • You come here to discuss your "relationship problems" and "being alone" and wanting to know if the solution is to simply pledge that you'll never marry again and be done with it. "Is that necessary?" you ask. Of course not, but the only way to alleviate your current anxiety is to accept that marriage might happen...or might not. And if it does happen, the only way to avoid emotional intoxication and pain and to maintain peace is to witness whatever happens without playing phony roles or adopting false identities.
  • You believe that you are in a relationship with someone you know and that you really have an "object of your affection." What a deception. (1) If "you" are not, how could "he" be? (2) Once you move beyond the image and find what that person is truly like, then you will know that you don't know him at all, and then you may well shout at him someday in anger, "I don't even know who you are!" Correct you will be. (3) Once you move beyond your own image and find Who/What you Are, only then will You find What "He" Is. As it is right now, you don't have a clue who he is, What He Is, or Who/What you Are. And similarly, he doesn't know you or You at all. Until Realization, you will both be sleeping with strangers while each proclaiming your intimate knowledge of the "other."

On Meditation

  • Originally, only one purpose of meditation was intended: not to reach a state without thought but to consider a pointer offered until that point was understood. Consideration and understanding, not “motionless consciousness,” was the intent. If it is thoughts that you wish to be free of, then address in meditation or in the quiet the falsity of the particular ego-state that is generating the thoughts, not the thousands of thoughts that the single false ego-state is generating.
  • Meditation is intended to wake people up, not put them to sleep. Exercises conducted in the quiet along the “journey” are tools, yes, but when a homeowner’s house is built, he puts away his tools and then simply enjoys "the new place he’s in." Once Realized, it is understood that there is no meditator, so WHO is it who believes that (a) he has completed the construction of a new house but simultaneously thinks that (b) he must continue the building process? That would be, among other assumed identities, "The Person Who Needs Maintenance" and who has not Realized that there is nothing to maintain.

On Nothingness (Excerpts from the book FROM THE ABSOLUTE TO THE NOTHINGNESS, with pointers for only "the most advance seekers")

  • Understand that everything which you take to be “spiritual” and “noumenal” is really nothing more than an accumulation of relative and phenomenal concepts.
  • According to the earliest teachings shared among the Indigenous Peoples, that which is “true” is only the space between exhalation and inhalation. Close enough.
  • “True Self” is not “God,” though many who have morphed this philosophy into a religion will adopt and defend that Self-God, false-self concept as well.
  • Ultimately, to try to support any “identity” alongside “the no-concept, non-dual Reality” is itself contradictory.
  • At the “highest level” of understanding, any “identity” is seen to be conceptual.
  • “Bliss” is merely an undisturbed, unconcerned vibration.
  • The ultimate Advaita understanding is that there need not be any understanding. So relax.
  • When a “state” of zero concepts is reached, it is understood that there is no “identity” at all. Nothing from nothing leaves…nothing, not “SOMETHING.”
  • “Absolute,” “THAT,” “Brahman,” “God,” “energy,” “energy-matter,” “Consciousness,” “Awareness,” and “SOMETHING” are still man-made labels generated by persons.
  • Ultimately, to find out “who or what you are” is useless since there is no who to benefit, no user to use; on the other hand, finding out “who you are not” could eliminate unnatural and supernatural living and allow natural, AS IF living to happen throughout the remainder of the manifestation. That would also allow freedom to happen, and only if free can bliss happen.
  • Only when the addiction to the sound and the fury ends can the joy and bliss of the silence begin.
  • To look to the universe and to focus on the concept of “SOMETHING” prevents seeing “The Reality of the Emptiness,” “The Reality of the Void,” “The Reality of the Nothingness.”
  • Ego always wants more; freedom from the bondage of ego results in giving value to less.
  • Ego is about going and doing and zooming in order to collect more; freedom from the love of more allows the non-doingness (the beingness only) to manifest, at least temporarily.
  • Persons search for “the divine” and for an understanding of all that is “supernatural” when, in fact, there is nothing that is supernatural at all.
  • The result of their having been fooled is an endless stream of desires and fears among persons. Those create a constant sense of longing, and longing generates a constant sense of dis-ease.
  • The non-Realized never come to the understanding that it is only from a condition of emptiness (empty of concepts, of identities, of a “mind”) that a sense of fulfillment can happen during the manifestation.
  • The Realized can taste what the Italians call il dolce di fare niente—“the sweetness of doing nothing.” The Fully Realized will shift even beyond that and will understand something even simpler than “the sweetness of doing nothing,” namely, il dolce di Niente—“the sweetness of Nothing,” period. Trace your roots. Go beyond self and Self, beyond Consciousness, beyond Awareness, and even beyond the Absolute to the seminal Nothingness. Abide as such.
  • All identities are limiting. Limitations restrict freedom. Restrictions of freedom prevent the manifestation of happiness during the relative existence. Preoccupation with finding identities and assigning labels has the same effect.
  • If you would be free, align with the nothingness. Reach the space.
  • If you/You would be unconcerned, then all of your knowledge must go into liquidation. Has that happened? Have you reached the space?
  • “The supreme Absolute…is only a name for communication purposes.” (Maharaj)
  • “This is all a big hoax, a big fraud, created out of nothingness.” (Maharaj)
  • Ultimately, even “nothing” as a concept is abandoned.
  • Advaita (at the purest and most advanced level of the Teachings) endorses zero concepts. All of the mutated versions of Advaita, especially those which have been morphed into a religion by men with hidden agendas, are bastardizations … fabricated via the warped consciousness, accepted as truth by other specks of warped consciousness, and passed along now by such specks to other such specks.
  • There is a process whereby, from the nothingness, a particle can manifest. This entire universe began with the instantaneous manifestation of an atom within a vacuum.
  • It is from the nothingness that all manifestation happens spontaneously. After some groupings and ungroupings happen, the Nothingness will again prevail.
  • Prior to “this universe,” prior to Awareness, prior to Consciousness, and prior to manifestation, there was a “time” when only a vacuum was. Your “ultimate root” is even prior to time.
  • If you’re interested in oneness, understand that everything in this universe began as one, single atom that manifested within the emptiness of a vacuum.
  • Purged of all identities, ideas, beliefs, and concepts, the consciousness can function as an empty vacuum. Originally, the empty vacuum was undisturbed, unconcerned…without burden, without activity, without any doings. The relative existence is miserable for those who are “full of it.” If you would be undisturbed, unconcerned, without burden, without activity, without any doingness, be the emptiness. Reach the space and abide as such.
  • Fear not…nothing is coming. No judgment…no endless punishment. Desire not…nothing is coming. No endless celestial caroling…no heavenly brothels and no extraterrestrial orgies...no endless reward. Nothing, so enjoy, NOW.

For guides that direct seekers through the meditation process as conducted originally, visit:

http://floydhenderson.com/twicestolen1.htm

http://floydhenderson.com/twicestolen2.htm

You may schedule a retreat with floyd, either one-on-one, in pairs / couples, or in small groups. For details, visit:

http://advaitavedantaretreats.blogspot.com/

Also, you are invited to visit

www.floydhenderson.com

*****************************************************

The Advanced Seekers’ Series
visit www.floydhenderson.com for details


2. QUOTES from SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

"The world is nothing but the picture of your own 'I' consciousness."

"There are two witnessing stages."

"Prior to taking this form, you were formless; spontaneously the form came, and when the form came there was a natural longing to return to the formless state. When you want to return to the formless, desireless state, then only you come here, to seek what you are. The consciousness has to know the consciousness. When it realizes itself, then only do you return to normal."

"My true state, which is whole, undifferentiated, is beyond birth and death. I am never bound by my body and mind. I am limitless."

"Out of my existence as the Noumenon has come this state of the phenomenal. The homogenous understands the play of the attributes, the projection of the mind, but the play, the projection of the mind, cannot understand the homogeneous."

"Whatever spiritual things you aspire to know are all happening in this objective world, in the illusion. All this is happening in the objective world. All is dishonesty. There is no truth in this fraud."

"If you are not, can others be there?"

"After the information given to you by the mother, that you are a boy or girl, all your further acquisitions are by hearsay."

"Only that person will visit this place whose virtue and sin have come to an end."

"There is no question of elevating to a higher level. Here it is only a question of understanding."

"Both the mantra and the faith in the mantra will get dissolved."

"Understand that it is not the individual which has consciousness; it is the consciousness which assumes innumerable forms."

"There is no progress."

"Go to zero concepts."

"Both experience and experiencer will disappear."

"First of all you identify something as being good or bad for yourself. Then, in an effort to acquire good or to get rid of the bad, you have invented a God. Then you worship such a God and ... you pray to that God for something good to happen to you."

“I am stabilized. There is no going into samadhi, or coming down from samadhi. That is over.”

“From the Absolute no-knowing state, spontaneously, this consciousness ‘I am’ has appeared—there is no reason, no cause.”

“That mind-language will talk only about the impressions it has collected. The knowledge ‘I Am’ is not a thought but observes the thoughts.”

“When you are thoroughly knowledgeable, you will come to the conclusion that this beingness is also an illusion.”

“The nearer you get to the truth, the more you lose interest in worldly affairs. Such a one will not have any interest in the world, but will act like an ordinary person.”

“You are already in your true state. Because of the mind, duality comes in and therefore you are afraid.”

“You have some experiences and you try to benefit from them, but remember that whatever is going to be of use to you ultimately is going to harm you. Wherever there is use, there is also dis-use in this world of duality. Whatever you like is going to create harm for you. Whatever you like most is, in the end, going to be most harmful for you.”

“Every organic being, whether an insect or a human, depends on food. All these flowers, this foliage, is our antecedent state.”

“Before this knowledge ‘I Am’ appeared on you, you were absolutely unattached. As soon as the knowledge dawned on you, you became attached to everything around you. Only that false ‘I’ is attached. Everything is just happening, and the false ‘I’ is taking the credit for doing things.”

[Emphasizing that you are not the body]: “When you travel in a car, are you the car?”

“…You are the light.”

“Whatever you have tried to understand during your spiritual search will prove false.”

[Explaining why persons seem to grasp the understanding and then seemingly “lose” it]: “You are so used to the support of concepts that when your concepts leave you, although it is your true state, you get frightened and try to cling to them again.”

“People who depend on the intellect only always will be swinging like a pendulum.”

“At the time of the emotions, you were one with the emotions—you were not witnessing.”

“…You should go back, reverse, to the source.”

“Follow the same path by which you came.”

“From birth what has made the body grows? It is no power in the world. It is the power of beingness, the atom, the Self, the consciousness…call it what you will.”

“When the birth is disproved, the great noble meaning of spirituality and the meaning of this world—everything—is disproved.”

“If they come face-to-face with that root, they will be stunned into silence.”

“I take my stand in the original state where I was not aware that I am.”

“From my angle, you are nothing. You have no identity.”

“I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.”

“In order to manifest itself, the consciousness needs a frame, a particular construct in which it can appear.”

“Consciousness is present everywhere, but knowledge of that consciousness is dependent on the form.”

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3. QUOTES from DENNIS WAITE

"Traditionally, the knowledge that gives rise to enlightenment is passed down from teacher (guru) to disciple through the ages. Of course, it is possible for this knowledge to arise spontaneously, or in response to some ordinary or life-threatening event, but habit and our attachment to conventional modes of thinking make this very unlikely."

"It is the perennial problem of the teacher to to be able to judge where the student currently is in his or her understanding and lead them onwards from there. This is why a living 'guru' is really needed, so that questions may be asked and answered face to face."

"...We can each lose bits of our bodies and even go blind or deaf, yet 'we' remain. Similarly, we are not the thoughts or emotions, which come and go. We are not the mind - we continue to exist even when its operation ceases during deep sleep or under anesthetic. Even the I-thought is just that - another idea. The only constant aspect in all of this is consciousness, so that is what I must be...."

"Strong emotions of any kind prevent discrimination and lead to delusion and death (as the Gita puts it) since they lead to impulsive, rather than discriminatory action."

"Ultimately, the question 'Who am I?' cannot be answered. Who I am is the ultimate subject. Only the objective can be thought about or spoken of."

"Peace is beyond all emotions."

"The ego is a construction of concepts and its power is destroyed once the truth is understood."

"In reality, since we are not the body or mind, we cannot be born or reincarnate."

"As ever, in the philosophy of Advaita, the teaching is graded to suit the level of understanding of the student - and it is no use trying to 'jump levels' if we have not yet grasped the lower level principles."

"All levels of identification must be transcended and this should be done in a controlled and stepwise manner that has been validated through millennia of teaching. Attractive though it might seem, it is not possible to jump straight to the end."

"In reality, there is no karma, no saMskAra, no puruShArtha because there is no person who could have them. They are all teaching devices used to bring the student to a realization of the truth by means of carefully gauged, progressive levels of understanding."

"There is no end to desire whilst we consider ourselves to be limited. As one desire is satisfied another is born, continually adding fuel to the fire and taking us away from the happiness that we seek."

"Meditation is a state of absence of thoughts, i.e. absence of mind or ego. And in deep sleep, there is Consciousness only - again no ego. It is those moments when we 'forget ourselves' when we feel most alive and happy. Only forgetting ourselves permanently, i.e., eliminating the ego completely, can bring lasting happiness."

"Good and evil are only relative terms in the phenomenal world; Brahman is beyond both. Evil arises as a result of ignorance."

"Worldly pursuits cannot bring lasting happiness. They are limited while our true nature is unlimited."

"The ego will never be happy. Individualism and materialism take us away from the happiness that is our true nature."

"The ego is born out of ignorance and identification and gives rise to all of our subsequent problems."

"Advaita defines 'real' as being that which exists in or transcends all three periods of time (i.e. past, present and future)...."

"Because we already are That, there is not, strictly speaking, anything that we can do to become That. Once the ignorance of the fact is removed, the already existent truth is revealed."

"The knowledge, once it has served its purpose of pointing toward the truth, is discarded too."

"An opinion is always one view out of many possible views. They are therefore dualistic and necessarily false."

ALL TEXTUAL CONTENT AND PHOTOGRAPHIC CONTENT IN THE FLOYD HENDERSON QUOTE SECTION ARE COPYRIGHTED BY FLOYD HENDERSON 2001-2007

ALL TEXTUAL CONTENT IN THE DENNIS WAITE QUOTE SECTION ARE COPYRIGHTED BY DENNIS WAITE 2007 AND ARE SELECTIONS FROM HIS BOOK

Order @ http://www.advaita.org.uk/


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4. MORE QUOTES from DENNIS WAITE

Extracts from ‘The Book of One’


You can order it from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk,

direct from the publisher, O-Books

or from your local bookstore: ISBN 1 903816 41 6.


KNOWING THE SELF: Whatever we can see objectively, we cannot be that. This applies just as much to the idea of a role, that is actually a group of concepts in the mind, as to a physical object that we believe to exist on the other side of the room. Indeed, this is another argument to explain how it is that our real Self must forever elude the mind. We can never know it as an object simply because it is always the subject.

TRUTH: The most profound wisdom is knowledge of Self. All false conceptions of what this is must be renounced before the Truth can be discovered. Truth is not about acquiring more and more knowledge until some sort of critical mass is attained and the Self is realised - quite the opposite. It is about discarding more and more of the material and immaterial aspects to which the ego has become attached until nothing more is left – the Self is none of these.

HAPPINESS: This is the ultimate irony. We spend all our efforts looking outside of ourselves for that elusive object or situation which will finally give us lasting happiness. Yet it is the act of looking that takes us away from happiness. Happiness is what remains when searching ceases and we are ‘left’ with our Self - perfect happiness.

PURITY OF MIND: Purity of mind means a mind not free of thought per se but free of thoughts that distract one from the pursuit of the truth – desire, anger, fear, worry, anticipation etc. Basically any thought that implies that I am in any way separate or limited is necessarily taking us away from the truth. Furthermore, most thoughts relate to ‘objects’ in the world of appearances. The search for truth is inwards to the reality of the Self so that all such thoughts are of no value.

FAITH: shraddhA is also what is involved in science when we provisionally accept a working hypothesis, which we then confirm by experimentation. It would not initially be regarded as scientific to accept (or reject) the hypothesis without experiment. Once many scientists have independently confirmed it for themselves, the hypothesis may become a ‘law’. Others then exercise shraddhA in accepting it without conducting the experiments themselves. It is in this sense that the statements in the shruti may be regarded as ‘laws’, since they have been validated many times by Sages.

THE PROBLEM WITH THOUGHTS: There isn’t actually any problem with thoughts – thinking is what the mind does… and we are not the mind. When we first embark upon a study and practice of Advaita, it often seems that we are most nearly our true ‘Self’ when the mind is still and there is the perceptual and conceptual clarity of sattva. In fact, of course, we are always the Self, no matter what may be going on outside the body or within the mind.

OBSERVING: We, the observer, are inextricably linked with what we are trying to observe. The very act of observation changes the ‘reality’ of the situation. We cannot talk meaningfully about ‘things’ in isolation from us. This, of course, is just a small step away from saying that we are not actually separate from those ‘things’ or even that we and the supposed objects are actually aspects of a single reality.

REALITY: It is never going to be possible for the mind to move from the world that it thinks it knows to the Reality that it wants to know. The mind and the world are part of the illusion; the world is the domain of illusory objects and the mind the domain of illusory concepts. Once the Reality is known, in Self-realisation, the mind and world are known to exist no more as something separate from the Self. Thus it is that questions such as ‘how can I (the ego) come to know reality’ are actually meaningless. It is as if one of the characters in our dream were to ask how it could know what the waking state is like. All experience is of change; reality is not an event and cannot be perceived or experienced. Thus, everything that is perceived or experienced can be known to be transient and therefore unreal.

For more details, endorsements and extracts from the book, visit
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/thebook/thebook.htm.

Extracts from ‘Enlightenment: the Path through the Jungle’


You can order it direct from the publisher, O-Books or from your local bookstore: ISBN-10: 1846941180; ISBN-13: 978-1-84694-118-4.


ENLIGHTENMENT: The neo-advaitin claims that ‘we are already enlightened’. This is a fundamental error, which results from a failure to define terms clearly, and causes much confusion. It is true that we are already brahman, the non-dual reality, because there is only That. The point is that we do not realize this. Enlightenment takes place when we do. This is why the term Self-realization is also used – it is the direct knowing of the Self that we already are.

WHAT ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT: Enlightenment has nothing to do with 'merging with the Self' or ‘becoming one with God’. In reality, we are already the Self so that these expressions could have no meaning. Nor is it a 'feeling of unity'. When a pot is broken, the ‘pot space’ does not merge with the ‘total space’; the ‘total space’ is entirely unaffected by the presence of the container and remains the same before,during and after the temporary appearance of the pot.

WHAT ENLIGHTENMENT IS: Neo-advaitins repeatedly tell us that ‘I’ cannot become enlightened since ‘I’ do not exist. But there is very good reason why ‘I’ am unable to accept this. The simple fact is that I know that I do exist – it is the single thing about which there is no possible doubt. The problem is that the mind is mistakenly identifying who I really am with the body and mind – the ‘person’ – this is the ignorance that needs to be corrected. When this occurs, it is not ‘I’ who becomes enlightened, since I am already brahman; it is the mind (buddhi) that realizes this truth. Enlightenment is the dissociation of the truth of ‘I’ from the prior identification with mind and body.

EGO: The mind does not have to be literally destroyed in order to become enlightened – if it were so, how would the j~nAnI [one who knows the truth, i.e. someone who is ‘realized’] subsequently function in the world? What is required is that it be metaphorically destroyed by self knowledge. This is achieved by realizing that the mind is mithyA and does not have a separate existence.

NEO-ADVAITA: Neo-advaita is a belief-system without a system – i.e. no structure, no method, no practice; the ‘bottom line’ without any preceding text.

"NOTHING TO DO": If nothing is done, nothing will happen! The ‘person’ will continue in his or her life of suffering. Of course this is irrelevant at the level of reality - after all ‘I am brahman’ – but to the ignorant jIva it makes all the difference. Simply hearing the message repeated is not on its own sufficient, as many satsang seekers will testify. If the basic understanding is not present, the message will simply be unintelligible.

TRADITIONAL TEACHING: Traditional methods are regarded as archaic and no longer relevant to a modern age by many satsang teachers and all neo-advaitins. But you can’t replace an established and proven methodology with a complete absence of any method. Furthermore, although times, society and people change, the basic problems do not. Hence, the old teachings will always essentially still be applicable. They do not need to change because they already work and have been proven over many centuries. (Why, in any case, would it only be now that it needs to change? Shankara systematized the already-existing philosophy in the 8th Century. Is it only now that people, society etc. have changed?

Do not accept the essentially unverifiable pronouncements of neo-advaita regarding your existence as a 'story' and the meaninglessness of paths and teachers. Ask the following question of your neo-teacher: "Why should I believe you rather than the evidence of my own senses and reason? Why should I reject the proven teachings of the past thousand years in favor of what you are saying?"

For more details, endorsements and extracts from the book, visit
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/enlightenment/enlightenment.htm.

For those seeking the full explanation of the non-duality teachings offered by floyd Henderson, there are non-duality books offered below as well as retreats and Skype or telephone sessions available at http://www.floydhenderson.com/ .