Listen to this audio or watch the video below.
Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert and Rev. Regina Dawn Akers interviewed Floyd Henderson.
The Realisation of SELF means the shattering of the shell of separation so that the non-dual nature of Reality is directly known. How can this be different from person to person? Only in the ABSENCE of the person is this nature revealed. In this way, Floyd Henderson invites us to strip away all that is personal, all that is dualistic, all that separates us from this understanding of Oneness from our True Selves.
The summative statement I AM THAT; I AM describes that understanding of SELF in absolute terms as well as its expression in the relative. Floyd Henderson is THAT just like all human beings; however, Floyd is fixed unshakably in this understanding, so all functioning, relatively speaking, flows directly from this SELF-Knowledge.
In this way, the biographical details (such as, born in Louisiana; moved to Texas; worked as a teacher and business owner over several decades before taking early retirement to write; father of a daughter named Ashley; current resident in the community of Walden on Lake Conroe in Texas; years of seeking followed by twenty-five months in the forest dweller stage and experiencing a vision that resulted in the dramatic peripetia or flash of Realization; functioning as a Direct Path, Nisargan teacher; and author of over forty Advaita books) are the attributes or flavourings which coloured the pure consciousness in the particular shape and form at the relative level.
Yet, these attributes are false ingredients. They cannot provide a true answer to the question Who is Floyd Henderson? because he recognizes no who-ness at all … believes in no who that is living here at all. (From the forward by Louise Sterling for the book, The Advanced Seekers Series, Vol 1).
Floyd shares this additional information about his life:
during my early years I lived eight months out of the year with my parents in a dangerous part of a city on a street with two gang leaders and where I witnessed a stabbing on that same street before I was eight years old. The other four months of the year, I lived with my Cherokee / Medicine Woman Grandmother in her cabin in the piney woods of East Texas. Thus it was that by the ages of 5 and 6, I did not know either the term “duality” or the term “non-duality” but I had already witnessed both at play. In the part of the city where my parents lived – called “the slum” – the misery and suffering generated by duality-based thinking and talking and behaving was observed. By contrast, I had witnessed the type of existence which Grandmother enjoyed – and which she and I shared – because it unfolded in a non-dual style which allowed her to model peace and Love and contentment and independence and freedom from concepts.
Floyd’s books, including The Advanced Seekers Series for those seeking Realization via the Advaita teachings, can be found on his website: FloydHenderson.com