“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:”
William Shakespeare – As You Like It 2/7
May we bless the whole
as we play our role
in the cosmic theater of life.
Ever a part in it,
never apart from it,
in happiness or strife.
May we grow wise and harmonize,
though chaos seems e’er rife.
‘Til we’re the Whole- and not the role,
and holiness is Life.
“People .. who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”
~ Albert Einstein
Introduction
In April 1976, during a traumatic divorce, I experienced a transformative mid-life spiritual awakening. Thereupon, I began having many extraordinary psychic or mystical experiences previously unknown to me, including experiences which challenged my prior ideas about linear time and free will versus destiny.
In January and February, 1977, I was having so many unusual premonitions, dreams, synchronicities and precognitive experiences that I started making diary notations about them, though I’d never before kept any such diary. These extraordinary experiences radically challenged my “normal” linear time paradigm, and motivated me to try understanding what they meant and why they were happening.
At the end of February, 1977, I spent a week in New York City, so filled with amazing synchronistic and precognitive experiences, that I became convinced it was possible to mystically transcend serial time perception.
Before telling you what happened to me in New York that week, I must recount prior circumstances and events in San Francisco which were crucially related to those New York experiences.
Extraordinary experiences in San Francisco
One month before my New York trip, on January 22, 1977, I had an unforgettable mystical experience of traveling astrally super-fast to an unknown place. The inner experience happened when I was partially awakened from a sound sleep in the middle of the night. I was out of my body and traveling with a whirring/whistling sound, so swiftly that intuitively it seemed I was moving faster than the speed of light – a supposed physical impossibility.
My first destination was a room which appeared from its furnishings to be a typical hotel room. After observing the room, I suddenly traveled right through many walls in the same building and stopped in another similarly furnished apparent hotel room – again a supposed physical impossibility.
In the second room, I looked out the window and saw far below what I thought was a kidney shaped swimming pool on a platform, surrounded by geometric designs. At that point I briefly awakened in wonderment about this unprecedented experience, and later recorded it in my diary.
At this time, I was seeking explanations for my extraordinary experiences by attending various psychic/spiritual programs, including events sponsored by Arica Institute. Arica was a spiritual mystery school founded by Chilean mystic Oscar Ichaso, who used enneagrams – nine star polygons – to esoterically model and analyze human personalities. On Monday, February 7, 1977, I attended an Arica program in San Francisco where I was encouraged to visit Arica’s new beautiful headquarters facilities in New York City.
Also, during this same time period, I experienced several unusually vivid dreams, wherein I saw an unknown dark haired woman with short bangs, and became very curious about her identity and why she was in my dreams.
After jogging to the Golden Gate bridge each morning, I regularly walked to my office in the financial district. On the way to my office I often passed a store front Christian Science reading room on Polk Street where I read the selected bible passages displayed in the window. On Tuesday, February 8, 1977, the day after the Arica meeting, I had walked a short distance past the Christian Science reading room without stopping, when suddenly I felt impelled to go back and read the bracketed bible passage then on display in the window.
It was from Genesis, Chapter 29, about Jacob and his uncle Laban and Laban’s two daughters, Lea and Rachel who were both betrothed to Jacob. Jacob loved Rachel, Laban’s youngest daughter, but couldn’t marry her until after he had first worked for Laban seven years, married Lea, the eldest, and then spent seven more years laboring for Laban as a condition to his marriage to Lea.
The commentary noted that because of Jacob’s love and devotion for Rachel, the two seven year periods passed quickly – as if ‘time stood still’. That night I noted this in my diary.
In New York I was to participate in a week of class-action depositions. Since I was unfamiliar with New York city I asked my uncle Richard, a New York resident, to reserve a room for me at a hotel near the Rockefeller Center deposition site. He picked the Wellington. But thereafter I learned from other lawyers attending the depositions that the New York Hilton was closest to the deposition site. So I called the Hilton from San Francisco, but was told they were then booked. So, I planned to stay at the Wellington.
A miraculous trip to New York City
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
~ Albert Einstein
Here is what happened during my 1977 trip to New York which forever changed my views about the ‘reality’ of serial time:
On Monday, February 21, 1977, I boarded an airplane flight from San Francisco to New York City. En route I began reading a book by J. W. Dunne, entitled “An Experiment With Time” about precognition and human experience of time. I had just purchased the Dunne book, after reading “The Roots of Coincidence” by Arthur Koestler which discussed time seriality and synchronicity in light of observations by physicists. I was trying to understand the numerous precognitive and synchronistic experiences that then had been regularly occurring in my life for almost a year since my rebirth experience.
Dunne’s book proposed that past, present and future all happen concurrently, though ‘normal’ human consciousness experiences them linearly, except in dreams. Dunne’s theory was based on his own precognitive dreams and induced precognitive states. Though Dunne’s essay was originally published in 1927, this was my first exposure to these fascinating ideas about linear time. Soon, however, my amazing experiences during the week in New York convinced me of the probable validity of Dunne’s theory.
I arrived at JFK airport Monday evening, checked into the Wellington Hotel, and was assigned an uncomfortably warm room, in which I didn’t want to stay another night. On awakening Tuesday morning, I called the Hilton where I was able to reserve a room. So, I checked out of the Wellington and into the Hilton, where I was given room 2541.
On entering my new Hilton room I gazed out the window and was astonished to see below me an extraordinary mosaic art display of colored tiles arrayed in geometric forms. I immediately recognized it as the apparent “raised platform” with the same geometric design which I had mistakenly perceived as a swimming pool in my January 22 astral time travel experience. But instead of a swimming pool on a raised platform, I was viewing the roof of the Ziegfeld Theater, as covered with this artistic mosaic tile display.
Thereupon, I realized with amazement that my astral travel vision had been precognitive and, moreover, that my perception then that I was traveling faster than the speed of light – and thus traveling into the ‘future’ – was probably correct.
Soon after checking into the Hilton, I attended the first deposition at 1345 Avenue of Americas, in the offices of Arthur Anderson Co. Synchronistically, the extraordinary Ziegfeld Theater rooftop display was also visible from from the deposition conference room.
On Tuesday evening after the first deposition and before dinner, I decided to visit the New York Arica Institute headquarters, as suggested by San Francisco Arica people. Located at 24 West 57th Street, it proved unusual and beautiful as they told me – with even an interesting art gallery. There was only one other visitor when I arrived at Arica that evening – Pat, a dark haired woman with short bangs, wearing jeans and a denim jacket, who was viewing displayed art works.
We soon began chatting and learned that we were both quite interested in similar psychic phenomena. Pat, like me, had attended and valued Werner Ehrhard’s est training and had been having numerous psychic experiences following a recent divorce. She told me that she was self-employed as a free-lance model. (I later learned that she was then one of New York’s top fashion models.)
After talking for some time at Arica, we went to a nearby small restaurant where at dinner we were engrossed in conversation about logic versus experience of psychic phenomena and precognitive dreams – a conversation that seemed only to have begun when we needed to part. So we agreed to and did meet again for dinner the next night, Wednesday, February 23. And again we continued conversing about seemingly illogical but very real psychic phenomena which we had experienced.
On parting, I invited Pat to join me for dinner on Friday night, since I had a dinner engagement with my uncle and aunt on Thursday night. Until then, I had planned to return to San Francisco on Friday evening after the depositions, but decided that I’d like to stay in New York to see Pat again. She told me that she’d like to meet me again, but wouldn’t know if that was possible until Friday. So, we agreed that she would let me know by calling me at the deposition. I gave her a phone number which I’d been told would directly connect to the Arthur Anderson conference room where the depositions were happening.
That Wednesday night, I awakened suddenly from a sound sleep with the “ahaa!” realization that Pat was the dark haired woman with bangs who I’d earlier seen in San Francisco dreams. In a phone conversation the next day, I asked her if she’d always styled her hair with bangs. She replied that she hadn’t worn it that way for a long time, but that she had just had her hair cut with bangs, the week before we met. (So, when I saw her with bangs in my dreams, she wasn’t yet wearing them.)
On Thursday night I had dinner with my uncle Richard and aunt Roseanne. This was our first meeting since my spiritual awakening. So, tactfully, I tried to explain my recent experiences and new intense interest in psychic phenomena and precognition. But it seemed that these subjects were a bit too ‘far out’ for them.
On returning to my Hilton Hotel room before bed-time, I decided to read passages from the Gideon bible which I found in a drawer under the telephone. Randomly, I first opened that bible to the Book of Numbers where synchronistically I read this passage about significance of dreams and visions:
And the Lord said to them, “Now listen to what I say: “If there were prophets among you, I, the Lord, would reveal myself in visions. I would speak to them in dreams. But not with my servant Moses. Of all my house, he is the one I trust. I speak to him face to face, clearly, and not in riddles! (Numbers 12:6-8)
Next, I decided to review again Genesis 29:16 et. seq., the passage about Jacob and Laban’s two daughters, Leah and Rachel, which had so intrigued me two weeks earlier in the Christian Science Reading Room window.
And finally I ruminated deeply about the meaning of this passage, suggesting infinite possibility of ‘miracles’:
“Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believes” ~ Mark 9:23.
An amazing day
I arose Friday morning intending to stay in New York that night only if I could spend another evening with Pat, the lovely dark haired ‘woman of my dreams’. Otherwise, I would return to San Francisco on an evening non-stop flight. I received no phone message from Pat during the morning deposition session. Assuming she couldn’t meet me, I checked out of the Hilton at 1 p.m., and left my bags in the hotel lobby baggage room.
Only after checking out, was I informed by the Hilton desk clerk of Pat’s unsuccessful attempt to reach me there, and of her answering service call-back number. But I wasn’t able to contact her until after 5 p.m.
When I finally reached her, she told me she’d been trying to call me at Arthur Anderson all afternoon to arrange our meeting, but that no-one answered the Anderson private line number, so she had given up on seeing me, and had returned home outside Manhattan. By this time, it was too late for me to catch the hotel limousine bus service to JFK for the evening non-stop to San Francisco.
So I stepped up to the Hilton front desk and registered for a room for one night. Synchronistically, I was given room 2506 on the very same floor and very same side of the hotel as room 2541 (where I had been staying until then), except at the opposite end of the corridor. I entered the new room looked out the window, again beheld the extraordinary colored tile mosaic art display on the roof of the Ziegfeld Theater, and began crying. At long last I realized why in my January 22nd astral travels into the future I had moved through many walls from one hotel room to another. I had moved from Hilton room 2541 to room 2506. How AMAZING!!
Unexpectedly alone in New York on a Friday night when I had planned to return to San Francisco, and wondering how I would spend the evening, I went down to the hotel lobby bar for a drink. There I met an English woman named Pam, who told me she was visiting from London to spend time with her friend, actor Rex Harrison, who was then starring on Broadway in “Caesar and Cleopatra”, which had just opened at the Palace Theater.
Pam urged me to join her at the play that night and promised to introduce me to Rex Harrison after the performance. That sounded interesting, so I agreed to see “Caesar and Cleopatra” with her.
Then, I asked Pam what she did in London when not vacationing. She told me she was an actress on leave from the London production of “Fiddler on the Roof”. We talked a bit about Fiddler. I had seen the movie adaptation of the play, but not the play, and as we talked I was reminded of how much I had enjoyed the film.
Set in Tsarist Russia in 1905, the Fiddler story centers on Tevye, a village milk man and father of five daughters, and his thwarted attempts to follow religious traditions and maintain family unity in turbulent times; how he coped with both the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters and with the edicts of the Tsar banishing the Jews from their villages and dwellings.
The story was set at the very time when my beloved Jewish father, Harry, was born in a similar Ukrainian village. Especially because my father and his extended family were obliged to flee for their lives from Tsarist Russia, in the same way as the fictional characters in Fiddler were obliged to flee, I was exceptionally interested in the story and loved the music.
While Pam and I chatted about Fiddler, she mentioned that a Fiddler revival was then running on Broadway with Zero Mostel in the lead role, as Tevye the milkman. I had always wanted to see a Fiddler production but didn’t know until that moment that it was being performed on Broadway. On learning this, I diplomatically explained to Pam that though it would be fun to meet Rex Harrision with her, I would prefer seeing Fiddler on the Roof.
I’d heard that with Zero Mostel, the original star, the play was wonderfully entertaining, and perhaps better than the movie in which Mostel wasn’t cast. So, after explaining this to Pam, I quickly went to the Winter Garden Theater box office where I was able to get a good center balcony single seat.
Thus on Friday, February 25, 1977, I was unexpectedly about to see a Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof”, with Zero Mostel, because I had unexpectedly failed to return that night to San Francisco as planned, and had unexpectedly remained in New York City, where I was unexpectedly staying at the Hilton Hotel, in a 25th floor room at the opposite end of the corridor from the 25th floor room where I had unexpectedly stayed earlier in the week, after unexpectedly checking out of the Wellington Hotel.
As I sat that night in the Winter Garden balcony awaiting the opening curtain, I read the brief playbill story summary. But nothing therein prepared me for my emotional experience during scene six of the first act. Prior to that scene, a young man named Perchik – an itinerant bible scholar passing through Tevye’s village – had met kind hearted Tevye, who gave Perchik room and board in exchange for Perchik’s commitment to teach bible lessons to Tevye’s daughters.
Amazingly, act one, scene six, opened with Perchik giving Tevye’s daughters a lesson about Jacob and Laban’s two daughters, Leah and Rachel, from Genesis 29:16 – the same passage that had engrossed me in San Francisco when I read it in the Christian Science Reading Room window and again when I read it in my hotel room Gideon Bible.
For me this was such a miraculous, mysterious, and meaningful synchronicity, culminating so many similar amazing events during my extraordinary week in New York, that I spontaneously burst into tears. And I kept crying for the remainder of the play.
Conclusion
On returning to San Francisco from that miraculous week in New York, I began wondering:
“Are there really any coincidences or accidents, or is everything that happens to us predestined by laws of causation or karma?”
“Do we really have free will as most people believe?
And if so, what free will?”
What do you think?
Since that extraordinary week in New York thirty five years ago, experience has lead me to believe that it is possible for rare seers, Buddhas, and mystics to intuitively realize as accurate the following ultimate answers to these questions:
“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control.
It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust,
we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
~ Albert Einstein
Q. (to Ramana Maharshi)
“Are only the important events in a man’s life, such as his main occupation or profession, predetermined, or are trifling acts also, such as taking a cup of water or moving from one part of the room to another?” A. “Everything is predetermined.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.”
~ The Kybalion
“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion,
and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
“The entire Buddhist path is based on the discovery of egolessness and the maturing of insight or knowledge that comes from egolessness.”
~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
“Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously, you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth. Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.”
~ Lao Tzu
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
~ Albert Einstein
Ron Meditating On Ganges With Sant Keshadavadas, 1982
As explained in other posts, during a traumatic 1976 divorce, I experienced a transformative mid-life spiritual awakening. Two years later, I met a 100 year old Hindu guru, Shri Dhyanyogi, and evolved from being a secular Hebrew, to becoming a “born-again Hindu”. And gradually I developed an ever increasing interest and curiosity about Indian spirituality and culture. After a few years, the “universe” presented me with an ideal opportunity to satisfy that curiosity.
In 1981, soon after Dhyanyogi had returned to India, I met Sant Keshadavadas, a devotional Indian spiritual teacher known as a singing saint. Especially in the absence of my beloved Guruji, Dhyanyogi, I appreciated Sant Keshadavadas’ loving demeanor, singing, stories and teachings. So I frequently attended programs at his Oakland, California “Temple of Cosmic Religion”. Thereafter, on learning that Sant Keshadavadas would be conducting a spiritual tour of Indian holy places, I wanted to join that tour, if it was OK with Dhyanyogi.
So after obtaining Guruji’s approval, in January and February 1982, I journeyed with Sant Keshadavadas on a wonderful spiritual pilgrimage to Japan, India and Nepal. That guided tour was, and remains for me, the most important trip of my lifetime.
Never before had I been in a land with such a palpably spiritual ambiance as I experienced everywhere in India. Our tour group crossed the length and breadth of that vast country (mostly by airplane and local buses) visiting many spiritual shrines and meeting saintly beings, like Mother Teresa and Satya Sai Baba. And I had numerous wondrous experiences. (In other chapters I will recount some of those experiences.)
Ron with Mother Teresa, Calcutta, 1982
Sai Baba blessing Ron, Bangalore, 1982
Ten years after that trip, in 1992 I retired from law practice and returned to India to pay my respects to Guruji, who at age 114 requested that I write and publish my spiritual memoirs. Though initially bewildered by this request, I knew that such memoirs needed to describe experiences during my 1982 ‘trip of a lifetime’. But I hadn’t kept a diary during that pilgrimage trip, and had to rely mostly on memory to tell about it.
Thereafter, many years passed during which I lived in introspective semi-seclusion, without a TV, computer, newspaper, or radio news of the “real world”, meditating, praying, seeking answers to ultimate questions, and “enlightenment”. During these years I did not yet feel ready to honor Guruji’s request that I write and publish my spiritual memoirs. But I was always mindful of the importance of fulfilling his wishes.
A few years ago, while thinking about Guruji’s request, I discussed it with my friends Bizhan and Deborah. I told them that as I was delaying in writing and publishing my spiritual memoirs they were being edited by time, as my memories waned. And I expressed concern about whether I could remember sufficient details of the 1982 pilgrimage to India, suggesting that my friends might be able to help me remember stories I had shared with them.
Thereafter, within a couple of weeks, the universe produced an amazing synchronicity – a “manifestation miracle” which re-kindled memories of that momentous trip.
Here is what happened:
One afternoon while walking to the Marina Green adjoining San Francisco Bay I intended picking some dandelion and fennel leaves for my salad. But as I passed across the street from the Marina Safeway supermarket, I realized that I’d forgotten to bring a plastic bag in which to carry my ‘harvest’. After momentarily considering a detour into the Safeway, I decided instead to keep my eyes peeled for stray bags which commonly could be seen then blowing around in the public park area where I was walking.
Soon I saw at a distance on the sidewalk ahead of me a white plastic bag, and presumed that it was just what I needed. But as I approached it, I saw that it was far too large for my purposes. So, rather than leaving it cluttering the sidewalk where it might be blown into the water, I decided to put the plastic bag into a nearby waste dumpster.
I picked up the bag, walked a few a yards to the dumpster, and opened the dumpster lid prepared to discard the bag. But I was diverted from doing that by a surprising sight. Clearly visible, at the very top of the refuse pile in the dumpster, were about a dozen commercial VHS video tapes, which I began to examine with curiousity.
As I looked at the video titles, I saw that they all seemed to relate to spiritual subjects that interested me, like yoga. Though never before a ‘dumpster diver’, I decided that I’d like to take all those videos home and check them out.
Thereupon, I wondered momentarily how I might carry them, forgetting the large plastic bag that had led me to the dumpster. Then, remembering that bag, I laughed as I realized that the universe had not only led me to the videos, but had provided me a bag perfectly sized to carry them home. So I put them in that bag, which when loaded became quite heavy.
So, unable to continue walking as planned, I returned home with the heavy bag of videos but without dandelion or fennel for my salad. At home I discovered that the universe had just produced perhaps the most extraordinary “manifestation miracle” of my life.
And then I remembered that a team of professional videographers, led by a devotee of Sant Keshavadas, David Karp, had accompanied our tour group. Apparently afterwards they had produced and distributed this one hour documentary video for display on some non-network and cable television outlets. I had never acquired a copy of the video, and don’t recall ever before seeing it.
Yet somehow, over twenty years later, a copy of that video had synchronistically manifested for me in a Marina garbage dumpster which I unexpectedly visited at a rare time when the video was visible at the top of the garbage pile.
And on viewing the video I found that it included numerous scenes which had been filmed when I was present, thus serendipitously rekindling memories of that momentous trip, and fulfilling my recently expressed desire for such reminders.
Who can explain such synchronicity “miracles”? Nonetheless, despite their mysterious origins, such synchronicities can fill us with feelings of awe and gratitude for our miraculous Life on this precious planet, and remind us that we are part of Nature, connected and interdependent with all Life everywhere.
Einstein once observed that: “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” As I have been ever more blessed by such noteworthy and amazing “coincidences”, they ever more inspire and infuse me with heartfelt gratitude for the grace of this lucky life, and for the omnipresent but ‘anonymous’ Divine Source of all appearances therein.
*Videographer David Karp has generously permitted me to share with you on You Tube this documentary video, which so miraculously manifested for me just when I was trying to recall details of our 1982 pilgrimage to India and Nepal.
True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably. Happiness comes from the Self and can be found in the Self only.
Find your real Self .. and all else will come with it.
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
What is birth? Is it of the “I-thought” or of the body?
Is “I” separate from the body or identical? How did this “I-thought” arise?
Is the “I-thought” your nature? Or is something else your nature?
The “I” of the wise man includes the body but he does not identify himself with the body.
For there cannot be anything apart from “I” for him.
If the body falls, there is no loss for the “I”. “I” remains the same.
If the body feels dead, let it raise the question. Being inert, it cannot “I”.
“I” never dies and does not ask. Who then dies? Who asks?
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Q. How can we become immortal?
A. To be immortal, BE more than a mortal.
Consider:
What lives? What dies?
What exists? What persists?
Observe:
That every thing and every phenomenon
that arises and appears on the screen of our consciousness
Is but a fleeting mirage projected in space/time,
by and within the Light of Eternal Awareness;
That nothing is permanent in the ever changing universe,
where all that appears, disappears.
Be aware:
That only Eternal Awareness
exists and persists beyond time.
Ask and it shall be given; Seek and ye shall find.
~ Matthew 7:7
During my frequent walks to Aquatic Beach, I occasionally met there a lovely young woman swimmer, Simone, who found time to swim. while attending school and working to support herself. Several times we talked before or after her swims. During one of our chats, Simone remarked to me that some day she’d like to swim out at the opening of the harbor where it was deep with different tides than those closer to the beach where she was then swimming. But she said that she was afraid to swim there alone, and wouldn’t try to do so without others accompanying her.
Later, in November on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, I took one of my frequent walks out onto the San Francisco Municipal Pier. The pier juts far into the Bay and is a breakwater for the Aquatic Beach harbor. The deep waters at the end of the pier had enticed Simone as a new place to swim, but her fears had precluded that experience.
As I walked toward the very end of the pier, I saw a large crowd gathered there. Never before in many such walks onto the pier had I ever seen such a crowd. So I was quite curious as I neared them. And when I arrived at the end of the pier, I discovered that the people were gathered around and observing a young woman in a swimsuit who had climbed over the wall of the pier, and was standing on the ledge above the water, poised but afraid to dive into the water. It was Simone, fearfully hesitating for a long time before jumping off the pier to swim back to Aquatic Beach.
As we recognized each other, Simone asked for my encouragement. I obliged and, motivated by my reassurance, Simone finally jumped into the water, as the large crowd of well-wishing onlookers cheered her on. Just as Simone finally ‘took the plunge’ I gave her a “namaste” salute. Thereafter, she swam back to Aquatic Beach with Ned, another regular swimmer with whom I also was having synchronistic encounters and chats. Responding to Simone’s wish for a deep water swimming companion, Ned had walked with Simone onto the pier and had been treading water awaiting her dive to join him in swimming back to the beach.
As Simone and Ned swam together back to the beach, I wondered how Simone would feel after overcoming her fear of swimming in such deep waters. So, I intended to quickly walk back to the beach and greet them when they arrived there. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, I had a very long and lovely synchronistic and spiritual chat with one of the other onlookers, Janice, a long-time Buddhist practitioner who had observed with curiosity my “namaste” salute to Simone. So I didn’t again see Simone or Ned that day as wished, and wondered thereafter about Simone’s experience of breaking her fear barrier about deep water swimming.
More than four months passed before I again saw either Simone or Ned. Then, on a Sunday afternoon in March, just as I began walking onto the sand at the West end of Aquatic Beach, I encountered Ned who was walking in his swim suit toward the Municipal Pier, where he planned to jump into the Bay and swim back to the beach. We chatted for a while about that November day and about Simone. He told me that he had seen pictures of Simone taken on the pier that day by an onlooker, but didn’t have them. As we parted, at my request, he offered to try getting me the pictures via email exchange with Simone, with whom he’d continued to communicate. And I asked him to give Simone my regards, expressing a desire to see her soon. We thereupon parted and I continued walking toward the East end of Aquatic Beach, as Ned walked to the pier.
A few minutes later, just as I arrived at the East end of the beach, a female swimmer emerged from the water and began drying off. It was Simone. My wish to see her again was almost instantly fulfilled. Then I told her about my encounter with Ned, and wish to see pictures of that memorable November happening. She took my email address, and later sent them.
Though neither Ned nor Simone was aware of each other’s “coincidental” presence that day on the beach, the Lone Arranger knew, and staged those quick consecutive encounters fulfilling my wish to see Simone and the November pictures of her.
“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“When there is harmony between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
“As it acts in the world, the Tao is like the bending of a bow. The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up. It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance. It takes from what is too much and give to what isn’t enough. Those who try to control, who use force to protect their power, go against the direction of the Tao. They take from those who don’t have enough and give to those who have far too much. The Master can keep giving because there is no end to her wealth. She acts without expectation, succeeds without taking credit, and doesn’t think that she is better than anyone else.”
~ Lao Tzu *
“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
~ Dr. Seuss
“The mind is like an elastic band. The more you pull, the more it stretches. Every time you feel limitations, close your eyes and say to yourself, “I am the Infinite,” and you will see what power you have.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Don’t complain
about your pain,
or of what you have,
or have not.
Just get into your brain,
and find the spot
where all you want –
you’ve got.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
~ Buddha
As conception is body/mind’s inception,
Its imprisonment begins with conviction.
We are shackled
by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.
So, seek relief
from belief;
and get out of jail —
FREE.
Let us end our universal malaise –
our chronic belief syndrome.
Believing is deceiving.
To know what’s so,
Question credo.
Follow your faith,
But “dis” your belief,
Lose your illusions, and
Drop your dogmas.
Follow dharma, not dogma.
Seek relief from belief,
And find clarity beyond doctrinairity.
Ron’s audio recitation of Seek Relief From Belief!
“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
~ Fred Rogers
“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself.”
~ A Course in Miracles (ACIM)
Bernal Heights view
Lately, I have been blessed with ever more magical moments and with ever increasing gratitude for this precious and lucky life. Usually these magical moments have happened synchronistically and unexpectedly. And often they’ve involved spiritual experiences with people, creatures or Nature, which I call “holy encounters”.
Just before the recent solstice holidays, I was blessed with a magical visit to a beautiful San Francisco view place which I had never before seen. And there I met a lovely man, Daniel Raskin, who shared with me a haunting story (which follows) of his unforgettable spiritual experience in a remote Utah desert canyon.
Here’s what happened, and the story Daniel told me:
I moved from Chicago to San Francisco in 1960, attracted by San Francisco’s climate, physical beauty and ambiance. Within its boundaries are more than fifty hills, several islands, and significant stretches of Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.
So, while living in San Francisco I have visited and enjoyed almost all of its best known view places. But until recently I never had known about or seen the spectacular view from atop Bernal Heights a hilly neighborhood above San Francisco’s outer Mission and Bay View districts.
Then, just before Christmas, I was invited to attend a beautiful holiday dinner party hosted by Shelley Cook, a very talented and intuitive massage therapist who has been skillfully helping heal and realign my body since it suffered a painful lower back yoga injury.
At the party there were many lovely artistic people, all much younger than me. One of the other guests, Audrey Daniel, a professional photographer/videographer, told me she had lived for many years in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights district, which she regarded as San Francisco’s most charming and typical neighborhood – like a village within the city. Whereupon, realizing that I had never yet visited Bernal Heights during my 50+ years as a San Franciscan, I became curious about seeing what Audrey was describing.
My curiosity was soon satisfied synchronistically by The Lone Arranger, my ‘appointments secretary’.
A few days after the party, at Shelley’s request, I unexpectedly rescheduled my regular afternoon appointment with her to morning, so she could accommodate some people from Santa Cruz who’d just been injured in an auto accident.
Upon finishing our morning massage therapy session, Shelley had extra time before her afternoon appointments. Generously, she offered to show me a nearby Vedanta healing center and shrine which she had long been urging me to visit. So we went to the shrine.
There, as I gazed at an image of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa – a nineteenth century Hindu saint with whom I have long felt special affinity – I experienced a deep Divine mood, and cried copious tears of devotion.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Thereafter, when Shelley and I left the shrine, it was lunch time. And instead of returning home to eat, I unexpectedly went with Shelley to a restaurant which she recommended. At first she suggested a nearby Asian restaurant, but then she suddenly intuited that we would probably more enjoy going to a place on Bernal Heights.
So, four days after hearing from Audrey Daniel about the Bernal Heights district, I visited that area for the first time in my life, and there enjoyed a delicious Mexican lunch with Shelley. After we ate and before returning to her studio, Shelley urged me to hike atop Bernal hill to enjoy the magnificent panoramic view of San Francisco, instead of taking my usual daily walk by the Bay.
So, still in spiritual mood from my experience at the Ramakrishna Vedanta shrine, I walked up steep streets to the base of Bernal hill. There I approached the first person I encountered, seeking directions to the hilltop trail.
But instead of a quick encounter about directions, we had an extended dialogue. It was Daniel Raskin, with whom I enjoyed a long spiritual chat and experienced a ‘holy encounter’, before we parted and I beheld the spectacular panoramic view from atop Bernal Hill.
Synchronistically, Daniel identified himself as a photographer living in the Bernal Heights vicinity, like Audrey the photographer responsible for my curiosity about that neighborhood. And when I mentioned Audrey, Daniel said he had participated and appeared in her documentary film The Owls of Bernal Hill.
As we chatted, I told Daniel of my interest in mysterious spiritual synchronicities. Whereupon, he shared with me a wonderful story of an unforgettable spiritual experience. Here is Daniel’s story as he wrote it for a diary in 1998, just after it happened:
A Spiritual Experience
By Daniel Raskin *
July 15, 1998, Cottonwood Point, Arizona
Sierra Club Trip: Locating Petroglyphs
Utah Box Canyon
Today we visited the end of a box canyon where there were complex and intriguing ancient petroglyphs and small ruins. After breakfast we drove a short way to our trailhead and hiked a few miles along a sandy path. The plants were mostly a bluish
aromatic sage; also juniper, cacti, local grasses and, here and there, a late blooming flower. The sky was perfectly clear, deep blue, and the sun fierce. Most of the hike was in full sun; the temperature in the nineties by ten or eleven.
The end of the canyon was a spectacular place, a high semi-circular vertical cliff. It was concave and beautifully banded, brown, light brown, reddish brown and yellow. A broad waterless wash wove through the flat valley floor. There, in the
shade of the canyon, oaks and plants with red berries grew.
As soon as I got into the shade of the canyon walls, I began to breathe rapidly. I did not feel I had over-exerted myself, and did not understand why I was breathless. I began to feel slightly nauseous, faint and dizzy. I also felt very moved by the beauty surrounding me. I began to feel very emotional. My heartbeat was rapid and my breath uncontrollably fast and deep. I began to feel like I had taken LSD.
I sat down. My condition intensified. I began to cry, copious tears. I was simultaneously relieved, frightened and confused. My thoughts and feelings wandered freely. As I continued to cry, I felt over-joyed to be alive. I felt blessed to enjoy the relative security of my middle class existence. I thought about my partner Ann. I thought about her ovarian cancer. It almost killed her, but now she is healthy again and stronger in new ways. I thought about Jesse, my twenty-one year old, and how he is now thriving after a difficult adolescence. I thought about Sam, my sixteen year old. He has survived a risky and chaotic early adolescence, and is stronger and more mature. I felt my love, my powerful love for my family. All this time I was crying and breathing deeply.
I thought about the miracle of being alive, of experiencing existence in the midst of infinite eternity. What explains my chance to experience life? Who or what, ultimately, gave me and all of us this miraculous gift?
As I thought and cried, I slowly began to calm down. My breath slowed. After a while I felt stable enough to get up. I took photographs of the canyon and the beautiful oaks and wild currents growing there. Then I joined the group. They had
dispersed about the headwall to view the great array of petroglyphs. There were animals, human figures, designs and scenes pecked into the rock. The most impressive was a figure of a one-legged person. People with deformities were sometimes holy people in Native American cultures.
After looking at the rock art I investigated the remains of a kiva. A coyote had made a lair in its recesses. I found a small rodent’s jaw. I climbed down to the canyon floor. Datura, a hallucinogenic plant was growing there. I wondered: “am I in a sacred place?” After a while we left the canyon, had lunch, visited more rock art sites and returned to camp. I felt light-headed for several hours.
What happened to me? Did I become delirious from the heat? Was I freaked out by the rigors of this trip, lonely for my family? Maybe. But why did this happen today, rather than on another hot, hard working day?
And, why did this happen in a place with a petroglyph of a one-legged person, a kiva and hallucinogenic plants growing?
I’d like to say I had a vision, if saying that didn’t feel arrogant and presumptuous. Who knows? Fortunately, life is full of mysteries.
After returning home: I shared my experience with Ann. She said that I had had a spiritual experience about the gift of life and the power of love, as she had had when she was sick with cancer.
* Daniel Raskin is a retired San Francisco preschool teacher and photographer.
******
Do you agree (as I do) with Daniel’s partner Ann that he “had a spiritual experience about the gift of life and the power of love”?
And didn’t Daniel’s spontaneously copious tears express more eloquently than any words the heartfelt depths of his joy and gratitude for this blessed life?
Ron’s moral of the story:
Daniel’s deep spiritual experience, shows us that we don’t need religious rituals, beliefs or dogma to experience Divinity; that, beyond religion, our grateful communion with Nature can be an equally powerful spiritual path.
“The brain does not create consciousness,
but consciousness created the brain,
the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
~ Dr. Seuss
Brains do not create consciousness;
consciousness creates brains.
With brains we’re ‘tuned’
to transmute infinite potentiality
to terrestrial “normality”.
Brains transduce and decode
‘chaotic cosmic totality’ to
ordered earth life “reality”.
“Rhyme, that enslaved queen,
that supreme charm of our poetry,
that creator of our meter.”
~ Victor Hugo
“Constantly risking absurdity and death
whenever he performs above the heads of his audience,
the poet, like an acrobat, climbs on rhyme
to a high wire of his own making.”
~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“Twas the night before Christmas,
when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there”
~ The Night Before Christmas,
~ Clement Clarke Moore or Henry Livingston
Have you ever wondered about origins of the Santa Claus legend long associated with Christmas celebrations? Why do people associate a mythical red cheeked jolly bearded old man from the North Pole with Christmas? Why is he archetypically depicted as attired in a furry red and white suit and flying through the air in a gift laden sleigh drawn by happy reindeer? Why does he supposedly deliver his gifts nocturnally via chimneys?
Last year, I began wondering about these questions after experiencing a Santa suit synchronicity. And I found interesting esoteric answers. Many people might suppose that the popular Santa (or Father Christmas) image began in 1823 with publication of the “Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem. But the poem was sourced from customs and legends which long antedated the nineteenth century.
I’ll tell about that after first recounting my Santa suit synchronicity story.
Especially since my mid-life spiritual awakening, some circumstance or artifact has often fortuitously or synchronistically appeared in my life fulfilling a wish or perceived need. In my spiritual memoirs, I call these experiences “manifestation miracles”. Such “miracles” have been much too numerous for me to totally recall and recount. But, I will be sharing some memoirs stories about them, including this story about manifesting a Santa Claus costume.
On a Friday afternoon, I experienced a blissful spinal healing session at “SoulWorks”, the office of San Francisco healer and chiropractor, Dr. Melanie Hernand. During that session I was continuously and spontaneously laughing a lot. Maybe that laughter sounded to Dr. Hernand like “Ho! Ho! Ho!”. For afterwards, she asked me if I would come as Santa Claus to the “SoulWorks” holiday Christmas party, a benefit for The Healing Hearts Project and children of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. With little hesitation I told Dr. Hernand that I would be Santa Claus at the SoulWorks party, if she helped me find a costume. She agreed.
So, joyously I exited SoulWorks that Friday afternoon knowing that I needed a Santa Claus costume. Miraculously the costume manifested that very night without any further thought or effort.
On Friday night I returned home after happily attending a program given by Visionary Activist astrologer Caroline Casey at The California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) where I was Board chairman during the 1980’s. It was my first visit to CIIS since leaving there twenty five years ago. And I very much enjoyed and appreciated Caroline’s presentation there.
I returned to my apartment building still in a blissful mood, and stopped in the lobby to get my mail. There I met my neighbor Ronelle Strand who was about to walk her dog before retiring. Since Ronelle was one of a few people to whom I had given a SoulWorks gift certificate, I mentioned to her that I had just agreed to be Santa at the SoulWorks holiday party. Whereupon she told me that her Bay Music entertainment booking service business had some rental costumes, including a Santa suit which had been in storage and unrented for many years. She offered it, and it was perfect.
Then, awaiting the Santa suit party, I began wondering about the origins of the Santa story. Whereupon, I fortuitously happened to notice on Caroline Casey’s Facebook page, a You Tube link to this two minute BBC video entitled, “Magic mushrooms & Reindeer – Weird Nature”
I watched video, was intrigued, and wanted to learn more. So, I consulted Dr. Google and fortuitously found interesting esoteric answers to my questions about the Santa Claus myth in a detailed article entitled “The Influence of Fly Agaric on the Iconography of Father Christmas” , also published by BBC.
Apparently, the Santa Clause legend arose from shamanic traditions of tribal peoples in pre-Christian Northern Europe, whose sacred psychedelic source was the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom, also known as “fly agaric”, a fungus found in pine and birch woods of western North America, northern Europe, and Asia.
Red-robed Chimney Climbing Santas
Apparently, Siberian shamans have used amanita muscaria for recreational or ritualistic purposes for thousands of years. During mushroom-induced trances, they would twitch and sweat before falling into a deep coma-like sleep. During this coma, the shaman’s soul consciousness left his body and ascended to the ‘spirit world’ where it communicated with the spirits about major health problems, such as outbreaks of sickness in the village.
On awaking, with new knowledge from subtle sources, the shamans found their muscular systems had been so stimulated that they were able to perform spectacular physical feats with seemingly little effort – like making a gigantic leap to clear a small obstacle. The mushrooms similarly affected reindeer, and mushroom intoxicated reindeer traditionally guarded each shaman.
The shamans lived in yurts, tepee-like shelters made of reindeer skin, with roofs supported by birch poles and smoke-holes at the top. During midwinter festivals of renewal, the shamans gathered the mushrooms from under sacred trees. While harvesting the toadstools, they would wear special attire, consisting of red and white fur-trimmed coats and long black boots, very much like the modern day depiction of Santa Claus. They’d then enter their yurts through the smoke-holes, carrying sacks full of dried fly agaric mushrooms, descending the birch pole to the floor. Once inside, the shamans performed ceremonies and shared the toadstool’s psychotropic gifts with those gathered inside. Then they left as they entered, climbing up the pole and back through the smoke-hole.
Flying Reindeer
Reindeer, known as caribou in North America, are deer found in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe and North America. They feed on grass and lichens, but also crave the fly agaric toadstool, Amanita muscaria, because of its intoxicating and euphoric effects.
The Sami have a custom of feeding fly agaric to their deer and collecting the urine to drink. The reindeer’s digestive system metabolizes the allegedly poisonous components of the toadstool, leaving urine with the hallucinogenic and psychotropic elements of the fungus intact. Drinking the urine gives a ‘high’ similar to taking LSD. Under the hallucinatory effects of the drink, the Sami thought their reindeer were flying through space, looking down on the world. The reindeers’ so crave the toadstool hallucinogens that they have been known to eat snow on which intoxicated humans have urinated, creating a reciprocating cycle.
Apparently, when the first Christian missionaries reached Lapland and heard stories of such reindeer flight, they integrated those tales into Western folklore concerning Saint Nicholas. So, the association of reindeer with Christmas was well established for centuries before the 1843 publication of the The Night Before Christmas poem, and the 1949 hit song, ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ popularized it with masses of people.
And to All a Good Night
Thus it seems probable that the traditional image of Santa Claus originated in shamanistic rituals involving the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom gathered by shamans wearing red and white fur-trimmed coats. From climbing into chimneys and gift giving, to dressing in red and white and flying through the air with reindeer, travelers and storytellers have fused these ancient customs with other pagan traditions and imagery. And these pagan customs have pragmatically been adapted and integrated by Christianity into its Christmas traditions.
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”
~ Albert Einstein
“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung
‘Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen…In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.’
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]
“All concepts in consciousness are Consciousness.
But for name – subject and object are same.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Essence Of Nondualism:
Consciousness = Subject = Object = Self
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Q. Where does subject end, and object begin?
A. Nowhere.
E=mc2.
Everything’s energy everywhere.
Energy’s endless,
So everything’s endless.
But we mistakenly believe what we perceive.
Thus, as Einstein observed:
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
Subject and object are mere ways of thinking –
perceptual/conceptual projections of Cosmic Consciousness,
which is our true Self.
As twentieth century Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi observed:
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything,
you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
“‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here.’”
~ Lewis Carroll
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
~ Carl Jung
“When the world goes mad,
one must accept madness as sanity;
since sanity is, in the last analysis,
nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
“When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
~ Mark Twain
I feel like a stranger in a strange world.
This crazy world has driven me sane!
I seek refuge from this crazy world;
I seek a sane asylum.
“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“This above all, to thy own Self be true.”
~ William Shakespeare
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
~ Mark Twain
“On a long journey of human life,
faith is the best of companions;
it is the best refreshment on the journey;
and it is the greatest property.”
~ Buddha
Q. What is “belief” and what is “faith”; and, how are they synonymous or different? A. “Belief” and “faith” are words used by different people to communicate different ideas about trust or confidence in Divinity or Nature. In each instance their meaning depends on the intention of the person using each word, and the context of such use.
Sometimes the words are used synonymously. For example, English language bible translations from original Aramaic sometimes equate belief in Divinity with faith.
Thus in Matthew 17:20 Jesus says:
“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed,
you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move.”
While in Mark 9:23 alluding to faith in Divinity he says:
“All things are possible for him that believes.”
But because there can be a significant difference between experiential intuitive trust in Nature or Divinity and ideological trust in religious dogma or secular ideas, for clarity in addressing this question we here distinguish between “belief” and “faith” and do not use them synonymously.
Both belief and faith may be founded on discrimination or rationality. But though faith may be balanced with reason, faith transcends reason. Belief follows ideas from the past which may or may not support faith – but can never negate it, for faith is beyond belief.
So, faith is transcendental, while belief mental.
Faith is NOW; belief is then.
“Faith” means intuitive trust or confidence in Life, especially in the miraculous unknown,
whereas “belief” means adopting or accepting ideas of others that something or someone is true or exists.
Faith arises from experience, discrimination and intuition and promotes our life journey, while blind belief deters it.
“On life’s journey faith is nourishment,
virtuous deeds are a shelter,
wisdom is the light by day and
right mindfulness is the protection by night.
If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.”
~ Buddha
Dogmatic religious or other beliefs limit or preclude openness, spontaneity and authenticity;
and, they often follow and mask doubt and uncertainty.
“Irrevocable commitment to any one religion is not only intellectual suicide;
it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.
Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown.”
~ Alan Watts
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear”
~ J. Krishnamurti
Doubt and fearfulness preclude openness, spontaneity and authenticity.
Belief follows fear. Fear and faith cannot co-exist.
Fearlessness is openness. Fearfulness is closeness.
“Faith—in life, in other people, and in oneself—is the attitude of
allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time.”
~ Alan Watts
Faith in transcendental Power or Divinity, named or unnamed, follows the Heart,
while belief follows fear of the unknown. Fear and Faith cannot co-exist.
Faith follows That which benefits everyone and everything, but belief may be inconsistent with universal good.
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all,
then accept it and live up to it.
~ Buddha
Faith follows intuition; faith follows the Way; faith follows the Self; faith follows the Heart.
By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.
~ Lao Tzu
“Surrender is faith that the power of Love can accomplish anything
even when you cannot foresee the outcome.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“They are the chosen ones who have surrendered.”
~ Rumi
Love is the sacrifice of will.
If you cannot leave will behind
You have no will at all.
~ Rumi
“In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you love?
How deeply did you learn to let go?”
~ The Buddha
Q. How much “ego” do you need? A. Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.
~ Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
We have nothing to surrender
but the idea that
we’re someone,
with something
to surrender. ***
Let’s let go
and
let life live us,
as Love. ***
Let’s leave it to the
Lone Arranger. ***
Let’s let go, and “go with the flow”.*
*Being “in the flow” is thought-free, effortless, and focused
merging of intention, action, and awareness
as consciousness – consciously letting Life happen through you. ***
Tao is Now,
Tao is One,
Tao is Doer,
Tao will be done. ***
Tao will be done.
So let Tao do it. ***
Give your spiritual
‘power of attorney’
to God. ***
“Let go, and let God.”*
*Unity Church maxim ***
Leave it to the Lone Arranger. ***
Ego Antidote:
The root of all problems is
I/me/mine.
End it with antidote,
Thy/Thee/Thine. ***
Ego: Use it to lose it! ***
Immolate ego
in the fire of faith. ***
As ego goes
consciousness grows
until it Knows –
Itself. ***
Ego is free to choose,
but is never free.
Self does not choose,
but is ever free. ***
Our only choice
is to accept
or reject
“what is”. ***
Acceptance is pleasure;
rejection is suffering.
Acceptance is freedom;
rejection is bondage.
Acceptance is NOW;
rejection is then. ***
So, if choose you must,
then with faith and trust,
say “yes” to Life. ***
With radical trust
we do as we must. ***
The more we trust
the less we try. ***
Enter a state of enlightened amnesia:
Be now;
forget then.
Remember God;
forget the rest. ***
Forget who you think you are,
to remember what you really are.
***
Ron’s audio recitation of Sutra Sayings- Surrender and Let Go of Ego
“In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you love?
How deeply did you learn to let go?”
~ The Buddha
The idea of spiritual “surrender” is encapsulated in the maxims: “Let go, and let God”; “Go with the Flow”; and “Not my will,
but Thy will be done”.
Both Eastern and Western religious and spiritual teachings
stress the importance of allowing the inconceivably immense power
of Nature, the Tao, or the Divine to guide our lives;
of simply surrendering to Life, and allowing it to live us as it may.
Before surrendering, we may egoically think ourselves separate from other beings and life-forms, and that we are in ultimate control of our lives.
But, as we gradually realize that we are inextricably part of Nature,
not separate from it, and that Nature Knows best and is in control, we more and more allow Nature, not ego, to guide us.
Surrender is an inner process; an intuitional attitude rather than an outer act,
arising gradually as we gain implicit trust and faith in Nature’s supreme perfection.
And as our faith in Nature grows, ego goes.
We gradually lose the ego illusion of separateness from Nature,
and ever more surrender to Life.
And when we become completely surrendered to the river of life –
the river of existence – ego disappears:
Revealing that our true nature is Nature;
Revealing we are THAT, to which we have surrendered.
Ron’s audio recitation of Surrender- Let Go of Ego
“Our mentality is our reality.
Our “reality” is what we think it to be.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Reality” isn’t REAL!
“Reality” is a holographic theater of the mind.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“We do not see things as they are;
we see things as we are.”
~ Talmud
“All appearances are verily one’s own concepts, self-conceived in the mind, like reflections seen in a mirror. To know whether this be so or not, look within thine own mind.”
~ Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche)
“When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“When your sense of self is no longer tied to thought, is no longer conceptual, there is a depth of feeling, of sensing, of compassion, of loving, that was not there when you were trapped in mental concepts. You are that depth.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi
“There are two ways of spreading light -
to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
~ Edith Wharton
“Reality’s essence is Divine luminescence.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
We view space/time “reality”
of apparently separate forms and phenomena
through the ‘mirror of the mind’ – with thoughts
from perceptions, memories and attitudinal tendencies.
What we really see is mind’s misperception,
reflection and projection of Self-awareness.
Mind distortedly refracts, reflects and projects
onto the screen of human consciousness
the unseen light of Eternal Awareness.
As a mirror’s reflection depends
on the angle from which it is viewed,
our perception, reflection and response to the world,
depends not only on our state of mind,
but on our unique point of view –
each from a different place in time and space.
As still, clear water best reflects light –
while permitting perception of its depths,
a still, clear mind best reflects and reveals
the Eternal Light of Self-awareness.
The fewer our thoughts, the clearer and calmer our mind,
and the deeper and more transparent our Self-Awareness.
The more disturbed or perturbed the mind,
the more it distorts and obscures the Light of Awareness.
The clearer and calmer our mind,
the more appropriately we respond
to ever changing cosmic energies,
without reflexively reacting to them.
With meditation and other mind-stilling modes,
we clear and enlighten our mind –
from opacity to translucency to transparency –
from mental mirror to window of the soul.
Thereby, with ever expanding awareness
and ever deepening insight,
we can and shall ‘see’ more and more –
we can and shall see what we couldn’t see before.
“What the caterpillar calls the end,
the world calls a butterfly.”
~ Lao Tzu
Glasswing Butterfly
Butterflies are living
metaphors for metamorphosis.
They symbolize our
knowing or unknowing
quest for transformation;
for transcending inevitable
earthly miseries and mortality.
We are inspired by the butterfly’s metamorphosis:
from creeping, crawling caterpillar,
to cocooned chrysalis,
to beautifully winged wonder.
Butterflies can inspire and symbolize
not only human aspirations and potentialities
for transforming our life on Earth,
they also can remind us that there is much more
to our ever changing “reality”
‘than meets the eye’.
Some butterfly wings which appear to us in colors,
are actually transparent.
Their iridescent scales overlap like shingles on a roof,
refracting light – like rainbows –
so as to give the wings the colors we perceive.
But in some species, like the Glasswing*,
we can observe the transparency of the butterfly wings.
With such transparency,
we can see what we normally don’t see.
In the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:11-12),
Paul observes that “now we see through a glass darkly”,
but that some day we shall fully know,
as we are fully Known now by the Divine.
Now, we view our “reality”
through the ‘mirror of the mind’,
which imperfectly refracts and reflects
the unseen light of Eternal Awareness
onto the screen of our human consciousness.
But, with meditation and other mind-stilling methods,
we can evolve and transform our mind mirror
from opacity to translucency to transparency.
And thereby, with ever expanding
human consciousness and ever deepening insight,
we can and shall ‘see’ more and more –
we can and shall see what we couldn’t see before.
So, beautiful transparent butterflies
can symbolize and inspire our highest aspirations:
our aspirations for elevating and expanding human consciousness
so as to transform life on our precious planet.
And butterflies can remind us that Reality
is much more ‘than meets the eye’;
That beyond this phenomenal world
of ever passing appearances is one changeless Reality –
One unseen Source and Essence of
all appearances, all phenomena, and all ideas:
“Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.” ~ Rumi
Spiritual teachers say we can learn about ourselves by closely observing all of Nature’s manifestations and processes. As above, so below.
So, what can we learn about ourselves by studying snowflakes and hydrologic processes?
Science tells us that though countless trillions of snowflakes have fallen on earth each has a unique form; that each snowflake is an hexagonally symmetrical crystalline form which begins around a tiny speck of dust, (as each pearl forms around a sand particle), but that no two snowflakes are exactly alike.
Yet, despite this wondrous and unimaginable diversity of forms, all snowflakes have a common essence — frozen water, H20.
When a snowflake melts, it returns to and merges with its watery source, which is perpetually recycled. So, each snowflake’s essence is the same – recycled water, which has formed countless unique prior snowflakes.
Not only are snowflakes unified in amazing physical diversity by their common watery essence, but science says that their common essence is indestructible. Water – a liquid – is a form of matter. Matter is merely manifest energy – E=mc2 – and energy can’t be destroyed. It just cycles from formlessness to differing forms and phenomena. So, in their essence, snowflakes are immortal energy.
Like snowflakes, each of the billions of humans who have inhabited Earth has had an individually unique form and genetic makeup. And like snowflakes, human physical bodies are composed of common elemental constituents, including mostly H20. People’s physical bodies – like snowflakes – appear for a twinkling of time, die and physically ‘melt’ back into the Earth.
But, unlike snowflakes, each of us is aware of our environment and of our life’s experiences; and this awareness is our entire existence. So, while unique snowflakes are united in glorious diversity by their common watery essence, physically unique human beings, are unified not only by their common elemental constituents but, also, by their by their common essence – consciousness, which is the sole context of human beingness.
Snowflakes emanate in Nature and, apparently, are peacefully at one with Nature until they disappear. Humans appear in Nature but – unlike snowflakes – we have great intelligence and we think. And through thought we identify ourselves with our perceived separate forms. Thus, we think that we are entities “condemned” by nature to inevitable bodily death. But we don’t know what will happen to us upon such death.
So, we become afraid of dying; of giving up the known for the unknown. And, through thought, we try psychologically to “protect” and preserve our ephemeral physical forms and to deter or deny their inevitable demise. Accordingly, our lives are often marked by mental afflictions causing conflicts, problems and suffering, which disturb our peace and our awareness of at-one-ment with Nature.
Q. So, what can people learn from snowflakes?
A. To ‘cool it’ and to not worry about our inevitable disappearance; to let go and go with the flow.
We can surmise that we are much more than our unique physical forms or our thoughts; that – like snowflakes – our common essence is immortal.
Realizing this, we can begin more and more to identify with our immortal nature, rather than our ephemeral forms and thoughts; and gradually we can expand our perceived boundaries, so to ever evolve ’til these boundaries dissolve.
Thus, we can more and more live with less and less anxiety, fear and worry. Though in this life we may never totally transcend ephemeral entity identity, often we can just be at peace – as immortal awareness.
And so,
“As we lose our fear, Of leaving life, We shall gain the art of living life.” ~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
In all events, – like snowflakes – we need not worry about leaving. For
“It is in dying [to ego life] that we are reborn to Eternal Life.” ~ Saint Francis of Assisi
Here’s what Paramahansa Yogananda says:
“The dewdrop belongs to the sea. Separated, it is vulnerable to the sun and wind and other elements of nature; but when the droplet returns its source, it becomes magnified in oneness with the sea. So it is with your life. United to God you become immortal.”
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
On observing noteworthy phenomena which we can’t yet explain by known natural or scientific laws, we call them “miracles” and often attribute them to a Divine power. So mystics and saints allegedly perform “miracles” for the good of humanity, and to foster faith in the Divine. Thus, after “miraculously” healing an official’s dying son, Jesus observed: “Unless ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe.” John 4:48
Here is a story about a noteworthy “miracle” involving my daughter Jessica and a mystery which I haven’t yet solved:
Following my traumatic 1976 divorce I did not share with Jessica and Joshua (my children who were then quite young) my intense new interest in Eastern religious philosophy. However, Jessica later independently became interested in Buddhism during a pre-college high school course in comparative religions. And she maintained her interest as she matriculated as a student at Amherst College, Massachusetts in the 1980′s.
In her 1983 application essay to Amherst, Jessica at age seventeen wrote:
“While I make no claim to being a Buddha –
a true master or enlightened being –
I have begun to understand that I must always be a seeker:
open and receptive to all new people, ideas, and things.
For although I have been extremely privileged
and have had the best possible education,
I haven’t yet and never will stop learning.
Having just recently discovered its spiritual dimensions,
I now know that a world of knowledge awaits me,
diverse and filled with surprises.
Fully aware of its vast potential and wealth,
I feel that I am ready to venture further into it,
and to explore what it has to offer.
‘I who do not know, and know that I do not know:
let me through this knowledge know.’
Idries Shah, The Way of the Sufi”
After her admittance and enrollment at Amherst, Jessica began doubting whether she was receiving there the “best possible education”. Seeking spiritual rather than secular knowledge, Jessica enrolled in and attended a brief accredited Buddhist Studies course in India sponsored by Antioch College. In 1987, after returning from India, she resumed her Amherst studies, and practiced Buddhist Vipassana meditations at a nearby Insight Meditation Society center. During a ten day silent meditation retreat there, she experienced a profoundly transformative spiritual awakening. Thereafter, her dissatisfaction with life at Amherst and her desire to go back to India gradually became so intense that she elected to leave Amherst for India, just one semester short of graduation. (Only after spending many years in India, did she return to complete her Amherst curriculum and post-graduate studies at Smith College.)
In India, Jessica initially spent time with Buddhist monks and practitioners in Bodh Gaya, a shrine where the Buddha was ‘enlightened’, and in Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama of Tibet lived in exile with a large community of expatriated Tibetans. Then, planning to return to the US, she decided ‘out of curiosity’ to first visit a Hindu ashram in the state of Kerala, Southern India, the home of Ammachi, a renowned woman spiritual teacher. Instead of returning to finish her college curriculum, Jessica was so drawn to Ammachi and ashram life that she elected to live and remain there as a Hindu renunciate for many years. She was given by Ammachi the auspicious sanskrit name “Yogini”, wore only white attire, and contentedly lived the life of a Hindu nun.
While Jessica was living on the ashram in India, I consulted expert Vedic astrologers to interpret her chart or “karmic map”. I was told Jessica had an auspicious spiritual destiny, and that I would some day be “proud of her” spiritual achievements. Especially because of Jessica’s prior transformative meditation experience in Massachusetts, this seemed to me a credible prediction. So, I waited with interest to see what might happen with her.
In May of 1993, Ammachi was scheduled to make a world tour, including a stay at her San Francisco Bay area ashram in San Ramon, CA. And Jessica was to accompany Ammachi as part of her entourage. Jessica’s mother, Naomi, and I eagerly anticipated Jessica’s arrival in the Bay Area. While I continued to be supportive of Jessica’s life in India, Naomi was skeptical about Ammachi and strongly disapproved of Jessica’s life with her. She wanted Jessica to return home to finish her education and lead a “normal” life. Naomi was then living in a Victorian house in San Francisco, with a small raised front porch.
A day or two before Jessica’s scheduled arrival, Naomi awakened one morning with repeated thoughts of Jessica, and irrationally thereby intuited that Jessica was arriving then – early. She came downstairs from her bedroom and opened the front door, thinking that Jessica had arrived. Jessica was not there, but Naomi beheld that her entire front porch was strewn with rose petals of various colors. Since there were no nearby rose bushes, or other apparent explanation for the mysterious appearance of the rose petals, Naomi assumed that someone (probably Jessica’s “born-again Hindu” father) was playing a trick on her. Thereafter, when Jessica arrived as scheduled, Naomi reported to her the manifestation “miracle” of the rose petals.
Soon, Jessica recounted Naomi’s story to Ammachi. On hearing the story, Amachi gathered and handed to Jessica a packet of rose petals and instructed Jessica to give them to Naomi. Jessica obliged, and on opening the packet Naomi observed that the rose petals from Ammachi were the same colors as those which mysteriously had appeared strewn on her front porch. So, Jessica believed that Ammachi had manifested the rose petals on Naomi’s porch, while Naomi remained skeptical about the incident, thinking it was some trick.
When Jessica told me that Ammachi apparently had graced Naomi with rose petals from “heaven”, I began continuously wondering about that incident. I had never before heard of any such manifestation attributed to Ammachi or any saint. And I wondered why such a special blessing was bestowed on Naomi, who was not a devotee of Ammachi but, rather, one who remained skeptical of Ammachi and her teachings. Also, I wondered why Ammachi would send rose petals to Naomi, rather than giving her some other spiritual experience that might assuage her skepticism and her consequent concern for Jessica’s future.
“Coincidentally” or synchronistically, soon after the rose petal incident, I read for the first time the autobiographical memoirs of Saint Teresa of Lisieux, the patron saint of France, entitled: “The Autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux: The Story of a Soul.” Teresa, who became the most popular of modern saints, entered a Carmelite convent at age fifteen and died there of tuberculosis, an unknown young nun, at twenty four. She would have remained unknown to the world but for her memoirs written at the direction of her prioress (in epistolary form) and for three volumes of her letters, all published posthumously.
In reading Teresa’s memoirs I was repeatedly reminded of Jessica. That little epistolary book reminded me of Jessica’s letters – of her way of sharing in writing her feelings about spiritual and inner matters. Also, apart from such syntactical similarities, I just constantly kept thinking of Jessica while reading about Teresa. But in no way did I then connect my repeated thoughts of Jessica, with the manifestation of rose petals on Naomi’s front porch, following Naomi’s repeated thoughts of Jessica. However, that mental/intuitive connection soon happened while I was on vacation in Northern New Mexico, visiting my spiritual author and poet friend, Richard Schiffman.
In July, 1993, Richard and I journeyed to a remote Benedictine monastery calIed “Christ in the Desert”, situated in a very beautiful canyon on a wild river. Previously, I had asked Richard and others if they knew of any other examples of rose petal manifestations by saints, like Ammachi’s apparent rose petal “miracle” on Naomi’s front porch. Until then, no one was able to identify for me any such alleged manifestation by Ammachi or anyone else.
Not until my visit to the book shop at Christ in the Desert, did I find what I was seeking. At the book shop I found several books about Teresa of Lisieux, and I told Richard how Teresa’s autobiography had reminded me of Jessica. Thereupon, Richard remembered that Teresa had been associated with rose petal “miracles”; that during her life she often threw rose petals; that during her last illness she had announced: “After my death I will let fall a shower of roses”; and, that rose petal manifestation “miracles” (amongst others) were posthumously attributed to her. Apparently, those “miracles” together with the publication of Teresa’s autobiographical diaries and letters resulted in such an outpouring of public sentiment that the Vatican “fast-tracked” petitions for her beatification and canonization in a manner unprecedented in modern times. When Teresa died, she was an unknown young nun. But for her writings about her inner life and aspirations, she would have remained historically unrecognized, and she would not have inspired millions of people to her ‘little way’ of spiritual devotion.
On returning to San Francisco from New Mexico, I began reading biographical materials about Teresa, and discovered some noteworthy parallels between Teresa and Jessica. Teresa – like Jessica – was a beautiful, precocious, sensitive and charismatic child to whom people were instinctively attracted. From childhood, Teresa – like Jessica – suffered from depression and other psychological insecurity issues without any apparent cause. Teresa – like Jessica – had hypersensitive hearing. In childhood, Teresa – like Jessica – could be obstinate about her wishes. From an early age Teresa – like Jessica – often showed wisdom and judgment well beyond her years. Teresa – like Jessica – had a simple yet elegant and eloquent way of sharing in diaries and epistolary writings her feelings about spiritual and inner matters.
On the eve of entering the Carmelite convent, Teresa wrote to her sister Agnes: “I want to be saint”, an aspiration which she often reiterated thereafter. In India, after soul searching and wondering about her life’s purpose, Jessica intuited and wrote in her daily journal her answer to that question: “I want to be saint”. (It is difficult to explain from her Jewish background, Jessica’s extraordinary aspiration to be a saint. Also it was surprising to me that Jessica assiduously kept journal diaries throughout her stay in India and prior thereto, a practice not instilled by her parents.)
The biographical materials about Teresa confirmed what Richard Schiffman told me at Christ in the Desert: that throughout her life Teresa loved throwing flowers and scattering rose petals as religious offerings; that shortly before her death Teresa proclaimed, “After my death I will let fall a shower of roses.” “I will spend my Heaven in doing good upon earth.”; and that rose petal manifestations were posthumously attributed to Teresa.
Also, l learned that just after Teresa’s twenty first birthday (January 2, 1894), she abandoned the sloping handwriting style which theretofore had been imposed upon her, and began to write in the way that came naturally to her: upright. In comparing photos of Teresa’s upright handwriting with Jessica’s upright handwriting, I perceived noteworthy similarities. But most noteworthy for me was comparison of photographs of Teresa and Jessica taken at similar ages. I found great similarities in their faces, especially in the eyes. To make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, one Sunday on visiting my beloved Jewish mother, Sue, I showed her a picture of Teresa dressed in nun’s habit, and asked: “Mom does this photo remind you of anyone?” Her prompt reply was: “She looks like Jessica, especially around the eyes.”
Here are the photos of Teresa and Jessica, which I found noteworthy:
By 1995, Jessica had a change of heart about continuing her life as a Hindu nun at Ammachi’s ashram. After much soul searching, she decided that she did not want to spend the rest of her life in India as a nun; that she wanted to finish her US education, marry and have children. And so after spending many years in India – in Bodh Gaya, Dharamsala, and Kerala – Jessica returned to Massachusetts to complete her Amherst curriculum and post-graduate studies at Smith College. At Smith she met and thereafter married David Channer. Their first child, Uma, was born on January 2, 2000, the 127th anniversary of Teresa’s birth on January 2, 1873.
In researching Saint Teresa, I learned that Father Jacques Sevin, a priest who founded the Boy Scouts of France, was one of her early and exceptionally ardent and influential devotees. And I found in his photo on the Internet an unusual resemblance to Jessica’s husband, David. Here are photos of Father Sevin and David Channer which I found noteworthy:
After Jessica returned to Massachusetts, I reported her changed status – from Hindu nun to American householder – to Pravin Jani, expert Vedic astrologer and pundit and father of spiritual teacher Shri Anandi Ma, who had predicted an auspicious spiritual future for Jessica. His brief comment was: “Very good. She needs that experience in this lifetime.”
What does this all mean? Why did it happen? How did it happen?
I don’t know.
Did Ammachi manifest rose petals on Naomi’s porch? Why?
Did Saint Teresa? Why?
Until now, Jessica hasn’t wanted to even hear or talk about this subject. But for me it raises significant questions not only about the rose petal manifestation mystery, but about prevailing Eastern views on “reality”, afterlife, reincarnation, and evolutionary transmigration of the soul from lifetime to lifetime.
What do you think? Remember, your thoughts are important:
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.” ~ Buddha
The eyes are the windows of the soul.
~ Traditional Proverb
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier, My Psalm
” Open thine eyes — bright windows to the soul —
~ William Hetherington
“….it is the soul itself which sees and hears, and not those parts which are, as it were, but windows to the soul…”
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
“There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth, …
beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.
This is the light that shines in your Heart.”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7
“Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
The eyes are windows to the soul.
The eyes are the soul’s windows to the world.
The eyes gleam with the Light of our Common “I”ness.
The eyes have it –
The light of Infinite Awareness.
So, let us focus on the light in the eyes of others.
And open our hearts to the Infinite,
Never forgetting that “It’s In Every One of Us”.
Voice, Music & Lyrics by David Pomeranz. Photos & Video by Wernher Krutein. 1987. Out-of-Print VHS.
“What is birth?
Is it of the “I-thought” or of the body?
Is “I” separate from the body or identical?
How did this “I-thought” arise”?
Is the “I-thought” your nature?
Or is something else your nature?”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Shri Ramana Maharshi
WHAT’S WHAT?
What lives? What dies?
What laughs? What cries?
What sleeps? What wakes?
What gives? What takes?
What thinks? What knows?
“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi
“Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself.
If the soul attend for a moment to its own infinity,
then and there is silence.
She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we will
we may always hearken to her admonitions.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to heaven.
~ Kahlil Gibran
In silence sweet
we may retreat
from every care and woe,
and there we’ll learn in perfect peace
all we need to know.
In silence sweet
we shall meet
the thrill of ecstasy.
and thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
we’ve nothing more to be.
In silence sweet
we shall find
all we’ve ever sought.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
that all our wants were naught.
In silence sweet
we shall see
that everything is light.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
there’s naught to fear but fright.
In silence sweet
we shall greet
our own true Self and Soul.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
we are the timeless Whole.
In silence sweet
we shall enjoy
Eternity’s repose.
For perfect peace we e’er shall be,
Peace no mortal knows.
“As we live through thousands of dreams in our present life, so is our present life only one of many thousands of such lives which we enter from the other more real life and then return after death. Our life is but one of the dreams of that more real life, and so it is endlessly, until the very last one, the very real the life of God.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
CAN WE BE BORN-AGAIN?
We’re born -
and born-again,
And born-again,
and born-again,
Until when -
We realize
we were never ever born.
And then –
we’re never born again.
Ron’s comments and recitation of Can We Be Born-Again?
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
Sri Anandamayi Ma
This “Women in Art” video (below) creatively morphs together different unique beings. Apart from its exceptional visual beauty and creativity, it can be experienced as a metaphor for our ever evolving human consciousness.
From seeing everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries, we are gradually realizing that everyone/everything is connected by their common essence: ever-changing energy in a matrix of immutable awareness.
Thus, we are evolving from a Newtonian “reality” of polarized duality to a quantum “reality” of holistic connectedness; from either this or that,
to this and that are ONE.
“One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not: what is the purpose of life? From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment. Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
Q. Is earth-life purposeful? A. Though some Eastern mystics may call this ever changing “reality”
a dream, maya, samsara, or illusion,
it is a marvelous and miraculous mental creation.
So how can anyone ever imagine earth-life to be without purpose?
Our purpose is process – metamorphic process;
We are here to evolve.
Like unique facets of an infinitely faceted jewel,
Each earth being has a unique perspective but a common Essence –
which transcends this world, while everywhere imminent therein.
So, our purpose is to harmoniously realize, experience and actualize
our ONE transcendent identity –
As Infinite Potentiality –
As Divinity.
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.”
~ Albert Einstein
What is “God”?
“God” is a word – a noun –
with countless connotations,
different for different people –
all believing or disbelieving in “God”.
Thus, “God” did not create man,
but man created “God” – with thoughts from
ruminations, revelations, intuitions, and speculations.
For many monotheists
“God” is a universally Supreme Deity,
and sole Creator and Ruler of the universe;
and, “God” is a “he” word,
meaning an anthropomorphic male deity,
with supernatural yet human-like qualities.
But, in this duality “reality”,
gender is everywhere in everything.
So, how can there be just one such God?
Isn’t it so that for every such God,
there’s got to be a Goddess;
for every “he” God, a “she” God?
Thus, mustn’t any unitary Divinity,
be beyond gender and duality –
and so, transcend this “reality”?
And if Transcendent,
though universally immanent,
mustn’t such a sole Divinity
be infinite, ineffable and inconceivable?
So how can we describe,
denominate, or depict THAT?
Even if we neuter it,
how can we name it?
Doesn’t any designation of unitary Divinity,
tend to divide and disrupt humanity?
What about atheists who ardently deny Divinity,
versus convinced theists and deists?
And what about religious fundamentalists?
Aren’t “God”, Allah, and Adonoi,
the same ‘Supreme Being’?
And if there is just one “God”,
how can that one God
be a different “true God”
for Christians, Muslims, and Jews
and their diverse denominations?
If one “true God” is the same
for all those religions,
what do they shout and fight about?
‘Methinks they protest too much’
because they really can’t conceive Divinity.
Don’t their fundamentalist shouts
disclose their doubts
about the identity of Divinity?
And isn’t there a connection between
monotheistic fundamentalism
and messianic fanaticism?
If one “true God” is the sole benevolent
Creator and Ruler of the Universe,
why did “He” create a world
with so much suffering and sorrow?
Why not a perpetual paradise without evil?
How can “He” allow holocausts
and other terrible calamities?
In projecting “God” as Creator,
don’t we just reify and deify
our doubts about Divinity?
Did “God” create karma and causation? If so, why?
So, can we get beyond speculating and
arguing about “God” and Creation?
And can we transcend
dogmatic divisive designations of Divinity?
Can’t we be tolerant
of all benevolent religions,
moral codes, and philosophies?
Can we – as the Buddha –
avert theistic speculation
that “tends not to edification?”
Buddhists aren’t theists or deists.
They don’t believe in a Creator God –
but they pray a lot.
I wonder who they’re praying to?
And I wonder who’s listening to their prayers –
and to everyone else’s prayers?
Isn’t it the same universal Awareness?
If so, how can we ever know?
How can we infer, find,
and know “God”
only through reason,
rather than revelation,
inner insight, or intuition?
If there is a universal Divinity
transcending our “reality”,
what is it’s identity?
Can we ever know such Divinity –
mystically, experientially, intuitively –
while yet dwelling in duality?
Can we know the Immortal
before leaving “this mortal coil”?
Or must first we die,
to be “born to Eternal life”?
To know the Immortal,
must we abjure desire
for earthly pleasures and ways
of this world?
Can’t we be “in this world
but not of this world”?
If so, how?
How and where shall we seek God?
Shall we follow doctrines, dogmas, or ideologies
from ‘outer’ authorities or theologies?
Or, as unique beings,
shall we each look within
and follow our Heart?
Doesn’t inner infinity ‘create’ outer “reality”?
So, isn’t inner infinity true Divinity?
And isn’t true Divinity
Eternal Mystery?
The Bible says: “Ask, and it shall be given..; seek, and ye shall find.”
So, now that we’ve asked all these questions,
will “God’” answer them?
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society
that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
~ Albert Einstein
“I think with intuition. The basis of true thinking is intuition. Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity. Intuition tells a man his purpose in life. One never goes wrong following his feelings. I don’t mean emotions, I mean feelings, for feelings and intuition are one.”
~ Albert Einstein
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
~ King Solomon – Proverbs 23:7
Q. When and how shall we think?
A. The power of thought is like a tool.
Don’t use it, unless you choose it.
Before thinking, still the ‘voice in your head’;
and, feel and listen to your Heart.
Think first with your Heart, not your head.
As stated in ancient Indian scriptures:
“There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth, …
beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.
This is the light that shines in your Heart.”
~Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7
In your Heart shines the Eternal light of Truth, the light of Love.
Logic has its limits, but Truth and Love are and boundless and timeless.
So, as Einstein implies:
Honor your Heart, over your rational mind.
Use your mind to serve and follow your Heart.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
~ Buddha
“The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are
essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung
“Reality” isn’t REAL!
“Reality” – like beauty –
is in the eye of the beholder.
It is a mental concept arising in consciousness,
and projected by the beholding self-awareness
onto certain perceived objects.
As rays of sunlight are in essence
the same as the emitting sun source,
perceived “reality” is in essence
the same as the Awareness
from which it originates.
But, because of the “magic mirror” of mind,
“reality” is mistakenly perceived
and objectified as separate and distinct
from the perceiving subject.
So, isn’t it NOW
time to really realize
that perceived “reality” isn’t real;
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates
the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.
Never lose a holy curiosity.”
~ Albert Einstein
The quest is in the question.
The question is the answer.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Questions are then,
Life is NOW.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Q. When do questions arise? A. Always then, never now. Q. Can there ever be a question without a thought?
A. I don’t think so.
Without a question there can be a thought.
But without a thought there can be no question.
“And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi
“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
~ Socrates
“Death is truly part of life … ‘what we called death is merely a concept’.”
“This happens at the gross level of the mind.
But neither death nor birth exist at the subtle level of consciousness that we call ‘clear light.’”
~ Dalai Lama
No matter how we strive,
No body leaves alive.
But we never really die – you see,
Just leave our physicality
To melt and merge with mystery,
The mystery of Divinity.
Ron’s audio recitation of Is Birth On Earth a Death Sentence?
“Reincarnation is not an exclusively Hindu or Buddhist concept, but it is part of the history of human origin. It is proof of the mindstream’s capacity to retain knowledge of physical and mental activities. It is related to the theory of interdependent origination and to the law of cause and effect.”
~ The Dalai Lama
Whence come I and whither go I?
That is the great unfathomable question,
the same for every one of us.
Science has no answer to it.
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“Is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?”
~ Edgar Allen Poe.
This place is a dream.
Only a sleeper considers it real.
Then death comes like dawn,
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief.
~ Rumi
When we come to Earth
they call it a birth.
When we leave,
they say we die.
But we really don’t come,
and we really don’t go.
We just dream our lives.
But why?
To awaken as Bliss
from all of this,
Joyous that all is
“I”.
Ron’s audio explanation and recitation of Dream Life
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen.
Not any religion, or cultural system.
I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.
Neither body nor soul.
I belong to the Beloved have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human.”
~ Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Gandhi
The new millennium demands a new universal religion -
A religion of Love.
So, let us curb our dogmas
and park our hierarchies.
Let us leave atonement theology,
and live at-one-ment Reality.
Let us transcend our ism schisms
and live a Universal ism –
If you put your hands on this oar with me,
they will never harm another, and they will come to find
they hold everything you want.
If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
lift anything to your
mouth that might wound your precious land –
that sacred earth that is your body.
If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.
Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
love goes mad with the blessings, like my words give.
Why lay yourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and the future?
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.
Be kind to yourself, dear – to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.
( Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky )
“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity,
and do not let expectations hinder my path.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Synchronicity is choreographed by a great, pervasive intelligence that lies at the heart of nature, and is manifest in each of us through what we call the soul.”
~ Deepak Chopra, Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
On a Monday, I purchased two bags of Granny Smith apples at the Rainbow Grocery. I had then been accustomed to eating just half an apple daily. But the apples were a bit small and especially delicious. So instead of eating just half an apple (as I’d been doing) I started eating a whole apple daily. On Friday I realized that I wouldn’t have enough apples to last until my next planned trip to Rainbow, and thought that I’d need four more apples before then.
Later, on taking my usual walk through Fort Mason to the beach at Aquatic Park, I was walking up the steep bayside paved road for pedestrians and bicycles, when as I came to the summit my path crossed synchronistically with that of my friend Carol Schuldt (the legendary then 76 year old swimmer/surfer/cyclist). Like a mountain goat she emerged from walking on the natural steep bayside cliff below the road, and she climbed up onto the paved path where I was walking. I asked in astonishment, “Carol what were you doing walking down there?” She replied that she didn’t like to walk in crowded places where others walk, but was glad to see me because she had brought me something in her backpack.
Thereupon, I told Carol she reminded me of a famous poem called “The Road Not Taken”. But momentarily I forgot the poet author’s name. Whereupon, Carol (who is not well read in literature and poetry) promptly reminded me that it was Robert Frost. I asked, “Carol, how did you know that?” In reply she told me that three days ago someone left a book of Frost’s poetry in front of her house. She picked it up and randomly opened it to a page where that poem appeared. Here it is:
The Road Not Taken
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Carol and I then walked together to the beach, where she removed her backpack, and gave me four fresh apples which she’d brought for me.
As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Love is what we were born with.
Fear is what we learned here.
The spiritual journey is the relinquishment – or unlearning – of fear
and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.
~ Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fears
hide our highest potentials.
The higher we go
the more we know,
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
On retiring one Saturday night, I planned going to Trader Joe’s first thing in the morning, for bananas and other needed provisions. But I was unexpectedly delayed for over two hours.
From 6:30 to 9:30 I experienced recurrence of traumatic post-colonoscopy diarrheal episodes. Finally, by 10 a.m., I was pooped out and showered and ready to go to Trader Joe’s. But when I got into my garaged Prius, the battery was dead. Almost another hour passed before AAA had responded to my emergency call and jumped the Prius’ battery to get me going. But instead of heading straight to Trader Joe’s, I needed first to drive for twenty minutes to recharge the battery. So, I finally arrived at TJ’s a couple of hours later than planned.
There I discovered that two important items on my shopping list – gluten-free rice bread and blackberries (which are anti-diarrheal) – were not on the shelf. Disappointed, I was about to check out empty carted when a smiling TJ employee offered to look in the stock room for the missing items. So, instead of checking out, I waited for longer than expected. While I was waiting, a special friend from my Aquatic Beach kook group appeared in the store. It was Hippy Dave, the singing, cycling, sadhu who is one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met. (Like my exceptional friend Bizhan, Dave’s birthday is May 8th, horoscopically exactly opposite my November 8 birthdate.) Because of cold and inclement weather at the beach I hadn’t seen Dave for a couple of months.
But there in Trader Joe’s, Dave and I had our usual wonderful synergistic ‘satsang’, greatly recharging our spiritual and psychic batteries. And while we talked the smiling Trader Joe’s man finally emerged from the stock room, triumphantly holding up my non-glutenous bread and anti-diarrheal blackberries.
The diarrhea, the dead battery, and the empty bread and berry shelves, together proved to be consecutive disguised blessings. But for their unexpected sequential occurrence, I wouldn’t have met Sri Dave and enjoyed our great Trader Joe’s satsang. And but for the smiling TJ man, I would have checked out empty carted before Dave’s arrival.
Moral of the story: Look for the disguised blessing in every experience, especially in every difficult experience.
“Consciousness is the basis of all life
and the field of all possibilities.
Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential.
The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
There is an evolutionary impetus in each of us
for unfolding Consciousness to ever experience itself.
Cosmic harmony assures that, knowingly or unknowingly,
everything that happens to us is in our best interests,
because it affords us an opportunity to evolve.
Paradoxically, life’s most painful and difficult experiences
often prove the biggest blessings,
because they provide greatest evolutionary
incentives and opportunities.
Studs Terkel tells here how the Great Depression
proved a transformative blessing for him:
“I never liked the idea of living on scallions in the left bank garret. I liked writing in comfort. So I went into business, a classmate and I. I thought I’d retire in a year or two. And a thing called Collapse, bango! socked everything out. 1929. All I had left was a pencil … There was nothing else to do. I was doing light verse at the time, writing a poem here and there for ten bucks a crack. It was an era when kids at college were interested in light verse and ballads and sonnets. This is the early Thirties. I was relieved when the Crash came. I was released. Being in business was something I detested. When I found that I could sell a song or a poem, I became me, I became alive. Other people didn’t see it that way. They were throwing themselves out of windows. Someone who lost money found that his life was gone. When I lost my possessions, I found my creativity. I felt I was being born for the first time. So for me, the world became beautiful. With the Crash, I realized that the greatest fantasy of all was business. The only realistic way of making a life was versifying. Living off your imagination.”
Studs Terkel: Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
So, look for the blessing in every experience, especially every painful experience. And
“When you’re feeling forlorn, remember this:
Misery is the mother of Bliss.” ~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds . To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain.” ~ Buddha (563 – 483 BC)
“In the beginning was Atman; the one without a second.”
“We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe.”
~ Aitareya Upanishad
A corporeal phenomenon, a feeling, a perception, a mental formation, a consciousness, which is permanent and persistent, eternal and not subject to change, such a thing the wise men in this world do not recognize; and I also say that there is no such thing.
~ Buddha (563 – 483 B.C)
Is there anything permanent
in Heaven’s vast firmament?
Is there a Perfection
beyond all conception -
a Cause of all that’s so?
Is there a force – an Eternal Source -
that we can ever know?
Is it our task, to seek and to ask,
and so to ever grow?
‘Tis a Perennial Puzzlement!
Ron’s recitation of Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
“Birth and death are virtual, but Life is perpetual.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
A few years after the death of his father, the famous 20th century Indian sage Ramana Maharshi was suddenly overcome with a powerful premonition that he too was about to die. Though he was then only sixteen years old and in good health, he became so fearful of his imagined imminent death that he felt impelled to investigate the bodily death experience. So he pretended that he was dying and introspectively contemplated his own death experience. Long afterwards in response to a devotee’s question about his “enlightenment” he so recounted this experience:
“The shock of the fear of death made me at once introspective or ‘introverted’. I said to myself mentally, ‘Now that death is come, what does it mean? Who is it that is dying? This body dies’. ….The material body dies, but the Spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. I am therefore the deathless Spirit. … Fear of death vanished at once and for ever. The absorption in the Self has continued from that moment right up to now”.
In 1979 I too had an extraordinary presumed near death experience. Unlike Ramana Maharshi’s pretended death experience, I really believed I was dying of a stroke and decided to observe the death process without resistance. Unlike Maharshi’s experience, my supposed death experience didn’t result in my instant “enlightenment” or permanent absorption in the Self. But, it was an extraordinary and unforgettable event, and it spurred my gradual transformative process of more and more identifying with spirit rather than body/mind, which had begun in 1976 with my post-divorce realization and rebirth experience.
After I received shaktipat initiation from Dhyanyogi in 1978, I began following his practices. But, also, I continued to explore spiritual mysteries by attending various other programs and lectures, with Dhyanyogi’s approval. When asked about our seeking information from other teachers, Guruji would say it was OK but unnecessary.
My near death experience happened in late 1978 or 1979, the morning after I had attended an inspiring lecture and experiential program given by Sufi master Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. At the program I whole heartedly participated in a Sufi remembrance of God ritual called Zikr, featuring repetition of names of Allah. Fervently repeating in unison with other participants: “La Ilaha Illallah” , “La Ilaha Illallah”, I vigorously rotated my body, head and neck, and became quite ‘high’ and rapturous.
The next morning I awakened feeling fine, and prepared to attend an important Federal Appeals Court hearing in one of my client’s cases. I had put on my grey pinstriped suit trousers, shirt and tie, and was in the bathroom, when suddenly I collapsed and fell onto the tiled floor and into a supine position. On the floor I was unable to move my head or body up or over. Then I discovered that I could inch along on my back like a caterpillar. In that manner with tremendous difficulty, I managed to move out of the bathroom and into my carpeted living room floor, still in a supine position.
I was not then near a phone and couldn’t call for help. Lying on my back, without pain, I said to myself mentally, “I must have suffered a stroke and am about to die. Now I will see what happens when I die.”
I closed my eyes and went into a deep state of relaxed awareness.
Suddenly it seemed as if I was astrally projected into the cosmos, where I was seeing magnificent luminescent silver, blue and gold heavenly bodies like in pictures taken by the Hubble telescope. Next, my inner vision shifted from outer space to appearances of beautiful, luminescent and intricate mandalas – like those associated with Vajrayana Buddhism, only more ethereal. As silently I was sensing these celestial scenes, thought returned. First I thought that dying was quite an interesting experience. Then, suddenly, I thought: “I never took Naomi off my life insurance policies. I can’t die now.” The ethereal visions immediately ended and consciousness returned to my supine body on the carpeted floor.
I don’t remember how much time had passed before I so returned to body consciousness. But when that happened I found that I could move easier and managed to slither to a telephone when it rang. Synchronistically, it was a call from my friend Kusuma, who had been one of Guruji’s translators and cooks. I told her what happened, and she dispatched Stan, a disciple of Dhyanyogi then living in San Francisco, to come help me. By the time Stan arrived, I was able to crawl with difficulty to the front door to let him in. He called my doctor who said my symptoms sounded like extreme vertigo from an inner ear problem, not a stroke. Later, Kusuma asked Dhyanyogi about my symptoms. He told her that they came from “shakti”, intense spiritual energy activated in my head.
Following my ‘near death’ experience, the vertigo gradually abated in a few weeks. I developed a curiosity about Tibetan Buddhism, and the meaning of their mandalas, which lead to my receiving refuge, empowerments, and teachings from Kalu Rinpoche, a venerable Tibetan Buddhist master, and teachings from other Tibetan lamas, including H.H. the Dalai Lama. Most importantly my conviction about immortality of the soul and my identification with spirit were immeasurably enhanced, while psychological fear of bodily death diminished.
But I didn’t become “enlightened” enough to transcend the lingering psychological trauma of my contentious divorce. So, long before my dizziness had disappeared, Naomi’s name was removed as a beneficiary on my life insurance policies. And I haven’t yet died – again.
After my near death experience I was quite surprised at how peaceful I felt when then facing supposed death, and began wondering whether I had transcended fear of death. That question was soon answered when a deranged young driver raced his car right at me as I was walking across Broadway, the busy four lane street where I live. Reflexively and instinctively I very loudly screamed “Jesus!” at him as I fearfully jumped out of the way. I shouted so loudly that I probably could have been heard for a block or two up the street. Thereafter for several hours, I experienced a “fight or flight” adrenaline rush. Moreover, since then I have had several similar though less intense precarious experiences while crossing San Francisco streets.
So, despite my serenity during the near death experience, some instinctive fear of bodily death remains for me. But I now distinguish such normal physical ‘fight or flight’ instinct for bodily self-preservation, from fear arising from ego’s illusionary self-identification with the body/mind and its story, rather than with universal spirit, its eternal Essence.
While yogis in other times and places could attain and maintain elevated states of awareness by taking refuge in the forests, on a mountain, or in a cave – or like Ramani Maharshi, in caves on a mountain, such stress free environments are hard to find for those living in present day US society. For me attempting to live authentically and sanely in our crazy culture has at times been quite challenging. I’ve found that in San Francisco courtrooms and environs midst societal insanity, without some ego I’d would have been metaphorically and actually run over while traversing my spiritual path as well as while crossing the streets. ….
Suzuki Shunryū, Roshi, who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, was once asked by a student: “How much “ego” do you need?” He replied: “Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.”
So I wonder what past spiritual masters would have done when suddenly confronted with immediate bodily threat? Certainly they wouldn’t have shouted “Jesus”, with an adrenaline rush. Maybe, like Gandhi, they would have uttered “Ram” while stepping quietly out of harms way. What do you think?
Remember then: there is only one time that is important – Now!
It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.
~ Leo Tolstoy
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”
~ Albert Einstein
Tao and Zen
are NOW,
not then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“All is perfection,
But nobody’s perfect.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth
who continually does good and who never sins.”
~ Ecclesiastes 7:20
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom.
It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken
and the wisest might err.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Incarnation is limitation.
All people are flawed;
none are perfect.
But the most flawed,
are those who claim or think they’re perfect.
The greatest self-delusion
is the conviction of being
beyond self-delusion.
The fewer our fears,
the fewer our flaws. “He who is without sin
cast the first stone.”
He who is without vice,
give the first advice.
High flyers, Beware!
All people are fallible,
and fallible means fall -able.
So, the higher we fly
the further we may fall.
“In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God
and the word was God” ~ John 1:1
“Better than a thousand useless words is one useful word,
hearing which one attains peace.
Better than a thousand useless verses is one useful verse,
hearing which one attains peace.” ~ Buddha
“…since in order to speak,
one must first listen,
learn to speak by listening.” ~ Rumi
Words are thoughts.
Words are thought symbols uttered or inscribed
to denominate and communicate ideas.
Words are then,
Life is NOW.
Life is a word game:
Adding a few syllables to the Ineffable,
we play the word game of life
until we find and become THAT –
the Silence that says ALL.
Language can be a ladder for ascent to the Ineffable.
With wisdom words we implicate that
Truth words never explicate.
Truth transcends wisdom:
Wisdom is primordial; but,
Truth is pre-primordial.
There’s nothing to say, but words point the way.
So, let’s elevate our spiritual “lexi-consciousness.”
Cosmic contra-diction:
In the beginning was the Word,
but in the end Silence says all.
We maximize the impact of our words
when we minimize the number of our words.
The epigrammatic is most dramatic.
Better than any words is experience.
As the Bible says, “God” is a word – a noun –
with countless connotations, different for different people –
all believing or disbelieving in “God”.
“God” is a word designating different ideas of a Transcendent Power.
Thus, “God” did not create man,
but man created the word “God” –
with thoughts from ruminations, revelations, intuitions, and speculations,
trying to identify THAT which is beyond words, beyond all thought.
When words are inscribed or uttered with deep insight
and heartfelt compassion, they can be very powerful.
Such words are imbued with the energy of their originator.
So, words from an ‘enlightened being’ are like sun rays;
they radiate the light of their Source.
Live laconically, and
Walk your talk:
Join “The Society of Laconic Walk/Talkers”, where –
The less we talk, the further we go.
The further we go, the more we Know.
The more we Know, the less we say,
’Til as Silence we are the Way.
“Speak little; say much.”
~ Swami Ron Onandonananda
“All suffering is caused by human desire,
particularly the desire that impermanent things be permanent.
Human suffering can be ended by ending human desire.”
~ Buddha
“To have no wants is divine….
The fewer our wants, the nearer we resemble the gods.”
~ Socrates
Wishes and wants are mental projections to the future
of remembered pleasures from the past.
Wishes are then, but Life is NOW.
Well-wishers sometimes sincerely say, “May all your fondest dreams and wishes come true.”
But, we’ll never have all we want ’til we want just all we have.
And – unfulfilled wishes can be Divine blessings.
So – topping our wish list, is our wish to be wish-less.
“There is one Cosmic Essence, all-pervading, all-knowing, all-powerful. This nameless formless essence can be approached by any name, any form, any symbol that suites the taste of the individual. Follow your religion, but try to understand the real purpose behind all of the rituals and traditions, and experience that Oneness.”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“Mind and manifestation are ONE.”
~ Mary Saint-Marie
“There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe. The horizontal threads are in space. The vertical threads are in time. At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual. And every individual is a crystal bead. And every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net, but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe.”
~ Indra’s Net – from the Vedas of ancient India, 7000 years old
“God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”
~ Empedocles (500-430 B.C., Greek Poet)
God is ONE:
God is All – manifest and unmanifest.
God is Infinite Potentiality.
God is ONE:
Divinity ain’t divisible.
Visible and invisible are indivisible;
Perceptible and imperceptible are inseparable;
Material and immaterial are integral.
SELF subsumes ALL.
God is ONE:
God is non-denominational.
So, let us celebrate – not separate – the Whole;
Let us balance our differences on a fulcrum of
< LOVE >.
And may we ever remember that:
We’re whole,
we’re whole,
we’re whole.
Nothing ever
can dissever our soul.
“Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Strictly speaking there are no enlightened people,
there is only enlightened activity.”
~ Suzuki Roshi
“Knowledge is structured in consciousness.
The process of education takes place in the field of consciousness;
the prerequisite to complete education is therefore
the full development of consciousness — enlightenment.
Knowledge is not the basis of enlightenment,
enlightenment is the basis of knowledge.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.”
~ Deepak Chopra (Synchrodestiny)
“There are many paths to enlightenment.
Be sure to take one with a heart.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply our natural state of felt oneness with being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet much greater than you. It is finding true your true nature beyond name and form. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflicts within and without become the norm.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man,
To soar with angels blest;
But even from angelhood I must pass on …”
~ Rumi
“Consciousness is the basis of all life
and the field of all possibilities.
Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential.
The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“Man’s highest aspiration – his seeking for perfection, his longing for freedom and mastery, his search after pure truth and unmixed delight – is in flagrant contradiction with his present existence and normal experience. Such contradiction is part of Nature’s general method; it is a sign that she is working towards a greater harmony. The reconciliation is achieved by an evolutionary progress. Life evolves out of Matter, Mind out of Life, because they are already involved there: Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of veiled Mind, May not Mind be a form and veil of a higher power, the Spirit, which would be supramental in its nature? Man’s highest aspiration would then only indicate the gradual unveiling of the Spirit within, the preparation of a higher life upon earth.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
Q. Is human spiritual evolution possible? If so, is it optional or inevitable?
A. Humankind are self conscious integral aspects of a conscious, orderly and harmonious universe.
As part of such conscious cosmic order, there is an evolutionary impetus in each of us for ever expanding universal consciousness to experience itself.
We are all “pre-programmed” to transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of seeming separation as body forms from all other forms (and so from the universe), by evolving from this separation illusion to experiential realization of cosmic Oneness of all forms and phenomena as undivided Awareness.
Our universe is an ever oscillating and vibrating energy “reality”.
So, our evolutionary pre-programming involves subtle vibratory vortices – or chakras – each potentially resonant with ever ascending vibratory levels of Awareness. As evolutionary energy – sometimes called Kundalini – is awakened and activated in each being it gradually purifies and eventually opens these subtle energy centers, until ultimate transcendence is attained.
Everything that happens to us until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” is in our best interest, because it affords an opportunity to evolve.
Although our evolutionary “pre-programming” assures that such transcendence is ultimately inevitable, our progress pace is optional,
depending on what we think, do and say, while misidentifying ourselves as separate.
For example, compassionate words, thoughts and deeds hasten spiritual evolution, while selfishness deters it.
But, cosmic consciousness will eventually provide life experiences leading to transcendence.
Paradoxically, life’s most painful and difficult experiences often prove the best evolutionary opportunities, and biggest blessings,
because they most challenge and motivate surrender of ego misidentification and provide greatest transcendence incentives.
So, human spiritual evolution is inevitable, but pace of evolutionary progress is optional.
“[Physical qualities] cannot be carried over into the next life.
The continuum of the mind, however, does carry on.
Therefore, a quality based on the mind is more enduring. …
So, through training the mind, qualities such as compassion, love, and the wisdom [of] realizing emptiness can be developed.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
My friend Konrad’s beloved mother used to say:
“If I can’t take it with me, I refuse to go.”
Despite her protestations – like every other person in the history of humanity – she was obliged to leave this world without taking with her anything fiscal or physical.
But her wonderful sense of humor survived her departure.
In this phenomenal world, everything’s energy; our worldly life-forms are but gross and subtle energy vortices in a field of universal awareness.
As the Dalai Lama observes, our subtle mental forms survive the death of our dense physical forms. So when we leave our physical body, our mind persists – and we will take it with us – somewhere.
Thus it’s wise for us to prepare for future ‘mind trips’ by training and stilling our mind to cultivate compassion, love and wisdom, with a wonderful sense of humor –
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. …To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty
which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
~ Albert Einstein – The Merging of Spirit and Science
Whence come I and whither go I?
That is the great unfathomable question,
the same for every one of us.
Science has no answer to it.
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.
And that is because, in the last analysis,
we ourselves are part of nature
and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”
~ Max Planck
The feeling of awe and sense of wonder arises from the recognition of the deep mystery that surrounds us everywhere, and this feeling deepens as our knowledge grows.
~ Lama Anagarika Govinda, The Way of the White Clouds.
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts
in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification,
knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
~ Voltaire
Q. How can we enter higher states of consciousness?
A. All states of consciousness
arise and subside in eternal Awareness.
We are never in states of consciousness;
they are in us.
“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Consciousness is the basis of all life and the field of all possibilities. Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential. The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness. If you are conscious of anything, you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
Q. What is human consciousness?
A. Thought divides Awareness
as a prism divides light.
So, human consciousness is
seemingly circumscribed Awareness.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:”
~ William Shakespeare – As You Like It 2/7
In the theater of life, personality is not reality.
Reality is the whole, while personality is a role.
So, play your role passionately,
but don’t take it personally.
~ Ron Rattner, Silly Sutras
“You are awareness, disguised as a person.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
~ Albert Einstein
In the theater of life we each play a role
with which most people identify themselves.
Each role is a mere bundle of thought forms:
Self identification ideas conceived in and from the past,
which we call our personality or life story.
So if we identify with a role,
we identify with and live in the past.
But life can never be lived in the past,
only in the present – the NOW.
And we can never be NOW
while thinking we are then.
So to live as the NOW
we must identify as the NOW –
As Eternal Awareness – Presence –
And not as our past personality role.
Identifying as Awareness,
we live authentically –
A Whole life, not a role life.
Ron’s audio recitation of From Role Life To Whole Life
“‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here.’”
~ Lewis Carroll
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“When the world goes mad,
one must accept madness as sanity;
since sanity is, in the last analysis,
nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
We live in an age of mental malaise.
The world now suffers an epidemic
of bi-polar paradigm disorder.
This condition begins to arise when people
futilely try to divide the Indivisible,
by everywhere drawing imaginary border lines –
like “us and them”, “good and evil”, “God and Satan” etc..
These border-line people then get mentally unbalanced
and feel dis-eased and threatened by people
‘on the other side’ of their imaginary lines.
Their border-line thinking is not logical, but pathological.
Bi-polar paradigm disorder is closely related to another
wide-spread mental disorder now afflicting
most of Humankind: Chronic Belief Syndrome.
Researchers are looking for a common cure for both afflictions;
a cure which will provide Humankind with “relief from belief”.
However, they are presently unable to secure federal funding for their research project and don’t believe that such a cure is imminent.
Ron’s audio recitation of Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ Tenzin Gyatso, H.H. Dalai Lama
H.H. Dalai Lama
Who are you? Who do you think you are?
You think you’re only an entity –
a person separate from all other entities.
With such thinking you’ve created
a false ego image of what you really are.
And you’ve mistakenly identified yourself as that ego image.
But you’re not that ego image.
You can never be what you think you are:
Thinking and Being can’t coexist.
So stop thinking, and start Being.
Don’t be an ego-image maker.
Be an ego-image breaker.
“Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, and mankind is reaching toward the very zenith of external progress, driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative, they wander even further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.”
~ Leonard Cohen
“Were I to await perfection, my book would never be finished”
~ Chinese Proverb
Q. What is perfection?
A. “Perfection” is an idea;
a conception in duality reality.
Perfection implies imperfection.
So in relative reality we can not have perfection without imperfection.
Ultimate Reality is beyond conception,
and so beyond “perfection”.
“There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe.
The horizontal threads are in space. The vertical threads are in time.
At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual.
And every individual is a crystal bead. And every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net,
but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe.”
~ Indra’s Net – from the Vedas of ancient India, 7000 years old
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
~ Albert Einstein
The “universe” is like a cosmic hologram:
An ever changing but persistent illusion
appearing in an eternal, immutable,
infinite ocean of Awareness –
Awareness arising from pure potentiality.
Each of us is an integral, pin-point part of the whole picture,
which wouldn’t be complete without us.
But, though we appear as only a speck of the Whole,
we are like parts of a hologram;
Hidden within each of us is the whole cosmic picture,
and the awareness screen
on which we envision and project the picture.
“He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.”
“… joy and sorrow are inseparable. . .
together they come and when one sits alone with you . . .
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
We can not reach heaven
without passing through hell.
In duality domain
ev’ry pleasure’s
wrapped in pain.
“There is only one God,
the same God regardless of the labels applied by religion. …
There is only one religion, the religion of Love;
There is only one language, the language of the Heart;
There is only one caste, the caste of Humanity” ~ Sathya Sai Baba
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen. Not any religion, or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body nor soul. I belong to the beloved have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Gandhi
“Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion — Hindus, Mohammendans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ‘jal’; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ‘pani’. At a third the Christians call it ‘water’. Can we imagine that it is not ‘jal’, but only ‘pani’ or ‘water’? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Let’s get beyond
Catholicism – Protestantism – Judaism – Mohammedanism -
Hinduism – Buddhism – Taoism – Confucianism – Shamanism -
and all other belief “isms”.
It’s time to end
religious ism schisms.
It’s time to blend religion-ism
with syncretism.
So, let us transcend
Ism dogmatism
And live ismlessly
as Love!
Ron’s audio explanation and recitation of New Paradigm-ism
Karma is a cosmic incentive system.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Every action, every thought, reaps its own corresponding rewards. Human suffering is not a sign of God’s, or Nature’s, anger with mankind. It is a sign, rather, of man’s ignorance of divine law. . . .
Such is the law of karma: As you sow, so shall you reap. If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering. And if you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
~ Paramhansa Yogananda
“It is true that we are not bound. That is to say, the real Self has no bondage. And it is true that you will eventually return to your Source. But meanwhile, if you commit sins, as you call them, you have to face the consequences. You cannot escape them.” ~ Ramana Maharshi
“To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.”
~ Bodhidharma
Coming from subtle planes to Earth
(the plane of time/space and causation)
the soul dons an “earth suit” – a human body/mind –
as its vehicle to explore this realm.
Each such vehicle comes equipped with
a revolving “karma card” account.
The object of the visit is to clear all “karma card” debits,
without incurring new ones.
Until we close out all our “karma card” accounts,
our visits to Earth become endless revolving round trips
repeated in a different vehicle for each trip.
So, we’re here to try closing out
all our “karma card” accounts.
Ron’s audio comments and recitation of Close Out Your ‘Karma Card’ Accounts
“Knowing you don’t know is wholeness. Thinking you know is a disease. Only by recognizing that you have an illness can you move to seek a cure.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Without stirring abroad, one can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window one can see the way of heaven. The further one goes the less one knows.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
~ Albert Einstein
It is said that “knowledge is power”.
However, transcendent power comes
not from mental knowledge, but from thoughtless Knowing;
And, until we really Know,
it is approached from unknowing –
What we think we know, but don’t.
We become ever more powerful as we
forsake our false beliefs,
“Each person’s life – each lifeform, in fact – represents a world,
a unique way in which the universe experiences itself.
And when your form dissolves, a world comes to an end –
one of countless worlds.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being,
only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance
will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is,
ever be put together a second time.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“Today you are You, that is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
~ Dr. Seuss
No two people experience identical perceptions
or states of consciousness;
Each one’s awareness
is mediated and limited by a unique body/mind;
And each person’s consciousness state is ever
changing and unique.
“Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues.”
~ Confucius
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.” ~ Albert Einstein ( N. Y. Times , March 29, 1972)
Q. What is “humility”?
A. Authentic humility is a core virtue and a sign of spiritual evolution. It is a state of modesty, free from pretension, pride and arrogance; a state that intuitively recognizes the Divine equality of all beings as blessed with the same Eternal Essence, and their Oneness with Nature; a state which opens us to learning by allowing us to acknowledge our limitations and fallibilities, and to experience with awe and wonder how little we know about the miraculous magnificence of this Creation. Yet, it is not a state of powerlessness or of low self esteem, but of powerful inner security, inner knowing, and inner-directedness.
Q. How does humility happen?
A. Humility grows as ego goes. As we ever more realize that we are part a vast universe and not separate from it, we gradually become less and less egoistic and self centered and more and more compassionate and humble. As Einstein says, this is a process of “widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Q. Why is humility considered a virtue, especially in prominent people?
A. Prominent people are subject to great flattery, praise and adulation which can entice and increase ego, the enemy of compassion and humility. Those who have resisted such ego temptations have been lauded as truly great beings. Eg. Gandhi was called “Mahatma” a Sanskrit word meaning “great soul”.
Throughout history, “humility” has been recognized and appreciated as a supreme virtue manifested by great beings from every tradition and culture, who chose to lead non-pretentious, simple lives dedicated to helping others, and who have thereby inspired countless others. Today, for example, H.H. the Dalai Lama who is revered by millions worldwide as a great sage and religious leader, often describes himself as a “simple monk”, and sometimes publicly responds to questions with “I don’t know.” *
[*According to Buddhism, ego and “enlightenment” cannot coexist. No “enlightened” Buddhist can acknowledge “enlightenment” because any such acknowledgment would necessarily imply an ego-identity, a personality, a being, a separated individuality. ~ Diamond Sutra, Chapter 9]
The Bhagavad Gita [13:8-12], perhaps the most important Hindu scripture, recognizes humility and lack of pride as virtues essential to Self Realization.
In the Tao Te Ching the great Taoist sage Lao Tzu states that the Master’s “constant practice is humility.”; and that: “Humility means trusting the Tao, thus never needing to be defensive.”
Various bible passages attest to the humility of Jesus. Jesus once said of Himself, “I am meek and humble of heart” ~ Matthew 11:29. And in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” ~ Matthew 5.5. Jesus claimed no special powers but attributed all to God. eg. “I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doth the works.” ~ John 14:10; “..I can of mine own self do nothing…I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” ~ John 5:30.
And Jesus counseled humility: “Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.” ~ 1 Peter 5.5.
Of Moses the bible says: “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.” ~ Numbers 12:3.
Albert Einstein was a very humble man who remained simple and self-effacing despite the world’s “genius” label and immense flattery, using his great prestige to advocate for social justice and controversial causes, like pacifism. Einstein regarded himself as just an ordinary person, with certain abilities in theoretical physics. [eg. see posting Synchronicity story: Analyzing Einstein’s Autograph] Einstein explained his humility thusly: “What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”
The great Gandhi, whose example of non-violent relentless pursuit of Truth and selfless service to humanity continues to inspire countless others, remained a humble man despite his immensely important accomplishments. His humility was evidenced by these Gandhi statements: “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” . . . . “I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
Thus, authentic humility is a supreme virtue which ever expands as we become less and less egoistic and self centered and more and more compassionate, thereby “widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
~ Matthew 5.5
“Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues.”
~ Confucius
“Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom.
It is healthy to be reminded that
the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal.
I own, however, that I have humility enough
to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
~ Crowfoot, 1890
WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a word – an idea – with many meanings which are mental, not fundamental.
As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the meaning of “life” is what we think it to be.
But beyond our space/time/causality “reality” Life is not mental,
but Transcendental:
Life is Eternal Mystery. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is awakened Awareness. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is infinite experience
Of Infinite Potentiality
From infinite perspectives. WHAT IS LIFE?
What is death?
In space/time polarity/causality reality,
life implies death;
life is the opposite of death.
So to know the meaning of life,
we must know the meaning of death.
When we Know the meaning of both life and death,
we shall know no death –
only awakened Awareness. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is aliveness. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is an “in a body” experience. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a continuous identity crisis:
An endless opportunity to transcend
entity identity. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is an idea game
in which we’re challenged
to make ideal
our ideas of what’s “real”. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is endless exploration of NOW. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is an experience/experiment in space/time. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a semantic space/time sojourn. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a round trip metaphoric journey,
on which we are destined to return to point of origin.
On return, we learn – we never left. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a journey: an ego trip.
Life is a journey: a mind trip. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a workshop for ego addicts; an ego trip. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a healing/wholing gnosis process. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a metaphoric metamorphosis process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
we learn all that matters —
we learn all that matters is LOVE! WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a mind field –
a field of dreams,
where all we ever see or seem
is but a dream within a dream. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a game of hide and seek.
Self hides in plain insight
and, knowingly or unknowingly,
we seek Self.
We seek and seek until we find
beyond the mind,
that we are what we seek –
that what we seek is the seeker. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a learning laboratory
for discovering immortality –
experimentally and experientially. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is suffering;
Life is mystery.
Life’s miseries are mental,
while it’s mystery is Transcendental. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a cosmic masquerade;
an endless comedy/tragedy/mystery drama.
The masquerade play continues with countless acts and scenes.
Each actor must participate in innumerable roles,
until each is ultimately unmasked,
with true identity revealed as
Common “I-ness”. WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is a mystery school
in which knowingly or unknowingly
we are all students –
each learning about,
and seeking to solve,
the same Mystery –
the mystery of Divinity.
Though we may never solve it,
we shall ever evolve it –
NOW!
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. …To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty
which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms this knowledge,
this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
~ Albert Einstein – The Merging of Spirit and Science
My life has become faith-based.
I follow my faith,
but I’m not affiliated
with any organized religion or other belief system.
After many years of questioning,
I’ve found faith beyond belief,
beyond dogmas or theology.
I’ve found faith in everything everywhere,
and in the impenetrable Mystery
beyond every form or phenomenon.
I’ve found faith in my Self and in Nature.
I’ve found the faith to follow my Heart.
Mine is not a blind faith based on fear or doubt,
or on inculcated or adopted ideas of others.
It is an abiding inner knowledge,
flowing from a long life
of reflective personal and trans-personal
experience and observation;
An insight arising from but transcending reason,
consistent and harmonious with
the highest welfare and unity of all Life.
My life experience has shown that our universe
is a magnificent, marvelous, miraculous and awe-inspiring “reality”;
That imminent in each life-form and in all manifestation
is an ineffable eternal Awareness:
An Intelligence or Divinity
which is the mysterious matrix,
Essence and Source of our reality.
My life experience has thus
indelibly instilled in me
an abiding faith in that Source*
As a purposeful evolutionary impetus in each of us;
A faith that from that Source
we get what we need when we need it,
Assuring that ultimately everything happens for the best,
to promote our evolution;
A faith that we are inevitably evolving toward
harmonious universal expression of greatest good –
As Peace, Truth, Joy, Love, and Compassion.
With such Faith, I am empowered to follow my Heart,
without worry, fear or doubt;
To accept inevitable and inescapable
life difficulties and uncertainties,
and yet to live openly, spontaneously and authentically.
So, without any religious affiliation,
I’ve become a faithful follower:
I follow my Faith;
I follow the Way;
I follow my Heart.
And this above all,
It is my Faith that enables me to be true to my Self.
*[Innumerable names - God, Nature, etc. - may be used to recognize that Source or any of its infinite aspects. Or as in the Jewish tradition it may be acknowledged that no name can denominate “That” which is beyond conception or expression - since naming limits the illimitable and ineffable Infinite Reality.]
Ron’s audio recitation of I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life
“If you could get rid of yourself just once,
the secret of secrets would open to you.
The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe
would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi
“Be empty of worrying,
Think of Who Created Thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi
Forget who you think you are
to Know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
There’s a voice in my head.
It keeps talking to itself and to me,
Telling me my thoughts,
and telling me what to do,
and sometimes judging me.
What is it? Who is it? Is it me?
And someone’s always listening to that voice in my head.
What is it? Who is it? Is it me?
And someone’s always thinking for me.
What is it? Who is it? Is it me?
If I am that silent voice in my head constantly talking
to itself and to me, am I crazy?
If I was always talking to myself out loud
(without a cell phone at my ear),
I’d be committed to a psychiatric ward.
Sometimes I don’t think at all, and then there’s no voice in my head.
But, I’m still aware and exist and can listen to other things.
So how can I be my thoughts or the voice in my head,
if I’m still here when they’re not there?
So can someone other than that voice in my head please tell me:
Who’s talking? Who’s thinking? Who’s listening?
“Life is like an onion; you peel off layer after layer
and then you find there is nothing in it.”
~ James Gibbons Huneker
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life.
‘It goes on.’”
~ Robert Frost
“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. ……
To live remains an art which everyone must learn, and which no one can teach.”
~ Havelock Ellis
“In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.”
~ Charlie Brown
“If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z,
where X is work, Y is play, and Z is keep your mouth shut.
~ Albert Einstein
“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust –
we all dance to a mysterious tune,
intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
~ Albert Einstein
“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
~ Crowfoot
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe,
to match your nature with Nature.”
~ Joseph Campbell
“Life is a long lesson in humility.”
~ James M. Barrie
“..the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.”
~ Walt Whitman, “O Me! O Life!”, Leaves of Grass
“Life is the hyphen between matter and spirit.”
~ Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare
“Life is a whim of several trillion cells to be you for a while.”
~ Author Unknown
“When we remember we are all mad,
the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
~ Mark Twain
“[Self] Realization is of the fact that you are not a person.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“The Witness and the witnessed are ONE.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Just as it is known
That an image of one’s face is seen
Depending on a mirror
But does not really exist as a face,
So the conception of “I” exists
Dependent on mind and body,
But like the image of a face
The “I” does not at all exist as its own reality.”
~ Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland of Advice
We are the screen,
not the movie.
We are the Glory,
not the story.
We are Rama,
not the drama.
We are the Whole,
not our role. Aum Ram Sovayam, Aum Ram Sovayam, Aum Ram Sovayam!
We are That,
We are That,
We are That!
Ron’s audio explanation and recitation of Who Are We?
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.” ~ Buddha
“As far, verily, as this world-space extends,
so far extends the space within the heart…”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.3
Follow your heart
to find what you wish.
Follow your heart
to seek what you miss.
Follow your heart
and you shall know this:
You are your heart,
you are your bliss,
You are what you seek,
you are what you miss.
So follow –
and find –
Your Heart.
Ron’s audio comments and recitation of Treasure Hunt Instructions
“Prayers go up and blessings come down.”
~ Yiddish Proverb
“Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.”
~ Socrates
In the deepest part
Of each being’s heart
Perfect peace pervades.
May we plumb these depths
And share percepts:
At-oned in common calmness,
Common being,
Common “I”-ness;
At-oned in timeless
LOVE.
Ron’s explanation and audio recitation of Prayer For At-One-Ment
“Full of love for all things in the world; practicing virtue in order to benefit others, this man alone is happy.”
~ Buddha
“Be empty of worrying,
Think of Who Created Thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi
The ego is a psychological prison
in which suffering is inevitable.
Secular psychology attempts to mitigate that suffering.
Spiritual psychology aims at ending our imprisonment.
“What is the path?”
“Everyday life is the path.”
~ Zen Master Nansen
“. . Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
“The spiritual path – is simply the journey of living our lives.
Everyone is on a spiritual path; most people just don’t know it.”
~ Marianne Williamson
There are as many spiritual paths as people.
Each person is unique,
with unique evolutionary challenges
arising from unique karmic causes.
To find and follow your spiritual path,
look within and find and follow your Heart.
“Those who know how to think need no teachers.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.”
~ Buddha
Q. How can we think more objectively? A. We can’t.
Thinking objectively is an oxymoronic illusion.
Thought is subjective; so everyone thinks subjectively.
To transcend thinking in the ‘subject-object’ box,
we can intuit our wholeness – as both subject and object.
Thus realizing that the essence of one is the essence of all,
we can more and more think holistically, compassionately and authentically.
So, think less, and intuit more;
Think with your Heart, not your head.
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear ? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man,
To soar with angels blest;
But even from angelhood I must pass on …”
~ Rumi
“Lord Krishna said: …. The learned neither laments for the dead or the living. Certainly never at any time did I not exist, nor you, nor all these kings and certainly never shall we cease to exist in the future. Just as in the physical body of the embodied being is the process of childhood, youth and old age; similarly by the transmigration from one body to another the wise are never deluded.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Krishna to Arjuna
“But know that by whom this entire body is pervaded, is indestructible. No one is able to cause the destruction of the imperishable soul. The embodied soul is eternal in existence, indestructible and infinite, only the material body is factually perishable….”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Krishna to Arjuna
“The soul never takes birth and never dies at any time nor does it come into being again when the body is created. The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable and timeless and is never destroyed when the body is destroyed. Just as a man giving up old worn out garments accepts other new apparel, in the same way the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies verily accepts new bodies.” “The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Krishna to Arjuna
“God generates beings, and sends them back over and over again, till they return to Him.”
~ Koran
“Souls are poured from one into another of different kinds of bodies of the world.”
~ Jesus Christ in Gnostic Gospels: Pistis Sophia
“Reincarnation is not an exclusively Hindu or Buddhist concept, but it is part of the history of human origin. It is proof of the mindstream’s capacity to retain knowledge of physical and mental activities. It is related to the theory of interdependent origination and to the law of cause and effect.”
~ The Dalai Lama (Preface to “The Case for Reincarnation”)
“Rebirth is an affirmation that must be counted among the primordial affirmations of mankind. The concept of rebirth necessarily implies the continuity of personality. Here the human personality is regarded as continuous and accessible to memory, so that, when one is incarnated or born, one is able, potentially, to remember that one has lived through previous existences, and that these existences were one’s own, ie, they had the same ego form as the present life. As a rule, reincarnation means rebirth in a human body.” ~ Carl G. Jung
“Why should we be startled by death? Life is a constant putting off of the mortal coil – coat, cuticle, flesh and bones, all old clothes.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man, and believing as I do in the theory of reincarnation, I live in the hope that if not in this birth, in some other birth I shall be able to hug all of humanity in friendly embrace.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I know I am deathless. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before. I laugh at what you call dissolution, and I know the amplitude of time.”
~ Walt Whitman
“I have been born more times than anybody except Krishna.”
~ Mark Twain
“I look upon death to be as necessary to the constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.” And, “Finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other always exist.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
Franklin wrote this epitaph at age 22 which was never used:
“The Body of B. Franklin Printer, Like the Cover of an Old Book, Its Contents Torn Out And Stripped of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies Here Food for Worms, But the Work shall not be Lost, For it Will as He Believed Appear Once More In a New and more Elegant Edition Revised and Corrected By the Author”
“I did not begin when I was born, nor when I was conceived. I have been growing, developing, through incalculable myriads of millenniums. All my previous selves have their voices, echoes, promptings in me. Oh, incalculable times again shall I be born.”
~ Jack London, author, best known for book Call of the Wild
“The theory of Reincarnation, which originated in India, has been welcomed in other countries. Without doubt, it is one of the most sensible and satisfying of all religions that mankind has conceived. This, like the others, comes from the best qualities of human nature, even if in this, as in the others, its adherents sometimes fail to carry out the principles in their lives.”
~ Luther Burbank
“As we live through thousands of dreams in our present life, so is our present life only one of many thousands of such lives which we enter from the other more real life and then return after death. Our life is but one of the dreams of that more real life, and so it is endlessly, until the very last one, the very real the life of God.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
“I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was 26. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives”. – - – -
“To me this is the most beautiful, the most satisfactory from a scientific standpoint,
the most logical theory of life. For thirty years I have leaned toward the theory of Reincarnation.
It seems a most reasonable philosophy and explains many things.”
~ Henry Ford
“As long as you are not aware of the continual law of Die and Be Again,
you are merely a vague guest on a dark Earth.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Live so that thou mayest desire to live again – that is thy duty –
for in any case thou wilt live again!”
~ Freidrich Nietzsche
“The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal.” “It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals… and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some strange new disguise.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The Celts were fearless warriors because “they wish to inculcate this as one of their leading tenets, that souls do not become extinct, but pass after death from one body to another…”
~ Julius Caesar
“Reincarnation contains a most comforting explanation of reality by means of which Indian thought surmounts difficulties which baffle the thinkers of Europe.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting. And cometh from afar.”
~ William Wordsworth
“My life often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and no end. I had the feeling that I was an historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing.
I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had been born again because I had not fulfilled the task given to me.”
~ Carl Jung
“I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence.”
~ Socrates
“It is not more surprising to be born twice than once;
everything in nature is resurrection.”
~ Voltaire
“He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships become newly born.
Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory.
Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face:
only time stood between one face and another.”
~ Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
“All pure and holy spirits live on in heavenly places, and in course of time they are again sent down to inhabit righteous bodies.”
~ Josephus (most well known Jewish historian from the time of Jesus)
“All human beings go through a previous life… Who knows how many fleshly forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand the value of that silence and solitude of spiritual worlds?”
~ Honore Balzac (French writer)
“Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.”
~ Arthur Schopenhauer (Philosopher)
“When the physical organism breaks up, the soul survives.
It then takes on another body.”
~ Paul Gauguin (French post-impressionist painter)
“Friends are all souls that we’ve known in other lives. We’re drawn to each other.
Even if I have only known them a day, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to wait till I have known them for two years, because anyway, we must have met somewhere before, you know.”
~ George Harrison
“Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return…
Forget not that I shall come back to you…
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind,
and another woman shall bear me.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead?
The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.”
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stories from Behind the Stove
We have nothing to surrender
But the idea
That we’re someone,
With something
To surrender.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me;
nevertheless not My will, but Thy will, be done.”
~ Luke 22:42.
“Setting aside all noble deeds, just surrender completely to the will of God.
I shall liberate you from all sins. Do not grieve.”
~ Bhagavad Gita
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
~ Proverbs 3:5-6
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”~ Lao Tzu
“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.”
~ Lao Tzu
“They are the chosen ones who have surrendered.”
~ Rumi
“How did you get here? Close your eyes and surrender.”
~ Rumi
“The hurt that we embrace becomes joy.” …..
“Roar, Lion of the Heart, and tear me open!“
~ Rumi
“The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”
~ William Booth
“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.”
~ Julia Cameron
“To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go”.
~ Lao Tzu
“He knows what He is doing with me.
I cannot always understand His way,
but I am content in the realization that He knows what is best.
That is surrender.”
~ Daya Mata
“Surrender is faith that the power of Love can accomplish anything
even when you cannot foresee the outcome.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“Knowledge is learning something every day.
Wisdom is letting go of something every day.”
~ Zen Proverb
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal,
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust consumes
and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
~ Matthew 6:19-21
“For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
~ Luke:18:25 ; Matthew 19:24
Do not cherish
that which will perish.
Do not treasure
fleeting pleasure –
Or what you can measure.
Do not believe
what you perceive;
And do not seek
what you can speak.
Seek the ineffable
and it is inevitable
That you will know
the Unknowable-
The Inconceivable!
That you will find –
Beyond your mind –
Eternal Peace!
Ron’s audio recitation of Seek More Than Meets The Eye
“Live harmlessly in harmony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Stay in cosmic synchrony,
as you play in Nature’s symphony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Don’t disrupt and polarize,
but syncretize and harmonize.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“When there is harmony between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
“A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another.
If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden.
But if these minds get out of harmony with one another
it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.”
~ Buddha
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say,
and what you do are in harmony.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity
but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”
~ Thomas Merton
“Grant that I may become beautiful in my soul within,
and that all my external possessions may be in harmony with my inner self.
May I consider the wise to be rich,
and may I have such riches as only a person of self-restraint
can bear or endure”
~ Plato
“A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue,
will purge the eyes to understanding her text.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.”
~ William Wordsworth
“Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation
into a harmony with the whole.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony;
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“In art, and in the higher ranges of science, there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavor. There is no true greatness in art or science without that sense of harmony.”
~ Albert Einstein
“My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as “laws of nature”
~ Albert Einstein
“Affirm divine calmness and peace, and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill if you want to live in peace and harmony. Never get angry, for anger poisons your system.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Put on love, which binds everything together in harmony.”
~ Colossians 3: 12-17
“Just as light brightens darkness, discovering inner fulfillment can eliminate any disorder or discomfort. This is truly the key to creating balance and harmony in everything you do.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.”
~ Heraclitus
“The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being that places harmony in one’s life.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.”
~ Plato (The Republic)
“Out of clutter find simplicity. From Discord make harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life’s relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left”
~ Aldo Leopold
Faith is the highest passion in a human being.
Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
~ Soren Kierkegaard
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart,
beyond the reach of proof.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The heart has its reasons
that reason does not know.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“On a long journey of human life,
faith is the best of companions;
it is the best refreshment on the journey;
and it is the greatest property.”
~ Buddha
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. …
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms this knowledge,
this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“My faith runs so very much faster than my reason that I can challenge the whole world and say, ’God is, was and ever shall be’.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“This above all, to thy own Self be true.”
~ William Shakespeare
“Mind is memory, at whatever level, by whatever name you call it;
mind is the product of the past, it is founded on the past, which is memory, a conditioned state.”
“Truth is not a memory, because truth is ever new, constantly transforming itself.
(M)emory is a hindrance to the understanding of what is.
The timeless can be only when memory, which is the `me’ and the `mine’, ceases.”
~ J. Krishamurti
Mind is a ‘memory bank’ where we keep
all past recollections and conceptions.
We are all memory bankers, using our memory banks to think –
mostly constantly and compulsively.
So thinking is always past, not present.
Thoughts are then, while life is NOW – not then.
And life is perpetual, while thinking is optional.
So to live optimally, let’s live presently,
but think optionally – not constantly or compulsively.
Let’s lock-up our ‘memory banks’ and take a banker’s holiday –
Remember then: there is only one time that is important–Now!
It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Remember God, forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Let never day nor night unhallow’d pass,
But still remember what the Lord hath done.”
~ William Shakespeare
Don’t forget what you knew
before you withdrew,
from dwelling in Heaven’s domain.
Recall your affinity,
with dazzling Divinity,
and in that Presence remain.
Remember with gratitude,
life is beatitude,
even its sorrows and pain;
For we’re all in God’s Grace,
every time, every place,
and Forever (S)HE will reign!
“With quantum theory we have to leave behind our naive picture of reality as an intricate clockwork. We are challenged by quantum theory to build new ways in which to picture reality, a physics, moreover, in which consciousness plays a central role, in which the observer is inextricably interwoven in the fabric of reality.”
~ Adam McLean
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
Imagine how blessed our lives would be
if everyone could really See
how everything is energy.
So, let’s take a quantum leap:
From particle to wave,
From lost to saved,
From I to Thou,
From then to Now,
From doing to Being,
From having to Seeing,
From ego to Soul,
From part to Whole.
Ron’s audio recitation of Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness
Humility grows as ego goes.
The smaller the ego, the greater the being.
Humility is next to godliness.
No one enters the highest heaven
believing s/he belongs there.
We have nothing to surrender
but the idea that
we’re someone,
with something
to surrender.
We ever evolve
As our boundaries dissolve.
The essence of nobility is not heredity, but humility;
not pedigree, but integrity.
To name and define is to constrain and confine.
So, to be free, be a nameless nobody.
The more we know we’re no one,
the more we’re seen as someone.
Be nobody nowhere NOW.
“Strictly speaking there are no enlightened people,
there is only enlightened activity.”
~ Suzuki Roshi
Q: What is enlightenment? A: “Enlightenment” is a word, – an idea with different meanings for different people; it is a mental concept resulting from thought. So, the meaning of “enlightenment” is in the mind of the thinker.
Here we call “enlightenment” an evolutionary process, not an ultimate destination.
In evolving toward “enlightenment”, we approach an ever-distant horizon in the Sacred Heart of Humankind. Q. What are some signs of progress in the enlightenment process? A. Less and less ego, more and more humility and authenticity;
less and less thought, more and more mental stillness and peace.
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“If there is love in your heart, you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“There is one Cosmic Essence, all-pervading, all-knowing, all-powerful. This nameless formless essence can be approached by any name, any form, any symbol that suites the taste of the individual. Follow your religion, but try to understand the real purpose behind all of the rituals and traditions, and experience that Oneness.”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion.”
~ Khalil Gibran~ “The Prophet”
“True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. ”
~ Albert Einstein
“A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“This is a time for us to remember that in the name of religion more people have died than in all the wars and natural calamities put together. Now more than ever we must understand that the purpose of religion is not to separate us. True faiths don’t preach hatred and killing, nor did any of the prophets. It is the people who interpret the scriptures who create the divisions. Division comes if we put our ego into the teachings of these religions. Let us strive to be free of that kind of egoism”
~ Swami Satchidananda
Let us accept all the different paths as different rivers running toward the same ocean.
~ Swami Satchidananda
“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
~ Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
~ George Orwell, 1984
“Irrevocable commitment to any one religion is not only intellectual suicide;
it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.
Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown.” ~ Alan Watts
“. . Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Religion is confining and imprisoning and toxic because it is based on ideology and dogma. But spirituality is redeeming and universal.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
~ Mark Twain – Autobiography, 1959
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen. Not any religion, or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body nor soul. I belong to the beloved have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human.”
~ Jalaluddin Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“There is only one God, the same God regardless of the labels applied by religion. … There is only one religion, the religion of Love;
There is only one language, the language of the Heart;
There is only one caste, the caste of Humanity”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion — Hindus, Mohammendans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ‘jal’; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ‘pani’. At a third the Christians call it ‘water’. Can we imagine that it is not ‘jal’, but only ‘pani’ or ‘water’? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
“People often ask me, “What religion are you? You talk about the Bible, Koran, Torah. Are you a Hindu?” I say, I am not a Catholic, a Buddhist, or a Hindu, but an Undo. My religion is Undoism. We have done enough damage (with religious dogma). We have to stop doing any more and simply undo the damage we have already done.”
~ Swami Satchidananda – Beyond Words:
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
~ John Lennon, “Imagine”
“Among all my patients in the second half of life … there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.”
~ Carl Jung
The following is a brief dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Brazilian theologist Leonardo Boff, one of the renovators of the Theology of Freedom, as recounted by Boff:
“In a round table discussion about religion and freedom in which
Dalai Lama and myself were participating, at recess I maliciously, and also with interest, asked him: “Your holiness, what is the best religion?”
“I thought he would say: “The Tibetan Buddhism” or “The oriental religions, much older than Christianity”
“Dalai Lama paused, smiled and looked me in the eyes ….which surprised me because I knew of the malice contained in my question. “He answered:
“The best religion is the one that gets you closest to God.
It is the one that makes you a better person.”
“To get out of my embarrassment with such a wise answer, I asked:
“What is it that makes me better?”
“He responded:
“Whatever makes you
more Compassionate,
more Sensible,
more Detached,
more Loving,
more Humanitarian,
more Responsible,
more Ethical.”
“The religion that will do that for you is the best religion”
“I was silent for a moment, marveling and even today
thinking of his wise and irrefutable response:
“I am not interested, my friend, about your religion
or if you are religious or not.
“What really is important to me is your behavior in
front of your peers, family, work, community,
and in front of the world.”
“Remember, the universe is the echo of our actions and our thoughts.
“The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics.
It is also of human relations.
If I act with goodness, I will receive goodness.
If I act with evil, I will get evil.
“What our grandparents told us is the pure truth.
You will always have what you desire for others.
Being happy is not a matter of destiny.
It is a matter of options.”
Finally he said:
“Take care of your Thoughts because they become Words.
Take care of your Words because they will become Actions.
Take care of your Actions because they will become Habits.
Take care of your Habits because they will form your Character.
Take care of your Character because it will form your Destiny,
and your Destiny will be your Life
… and … “There is no religion higher than the Truth.”
Here is a link to a You Tube Powerpoint presentation of this dialogue.
We’re just butterflies,
We’re just butterflies,
We’re just butterflies,
In a caterpillar world.
Hey we’re flyin’ high,
See us flutter by,
Way up in the sky,
In a caterpillar world.
[1st Refrain]
After many moons
In our cocoons,
Totally transformed we’ve been,
From chrysalis to crystaline.
Then, leaving cares and apprehensions
We’ve flown to joyous new dimensions.
But the world keeps creeping and crawling,
So we’re just flying and calling.
Come be butterflies,
Come be butterflies,
Come be butterflies,
O’er a caterpillar world.
Wake up and arise,
Fly up to the skies,
Come be butterflies
From a caterpillar world.
Come now claim your prize
To be very wise
Flying through the skies
O’er a caterpillar world
[2nd Refrain]
Until bye and bye,
Never knowing why,
You’ve soared ever high
To a beautiful heaven above.
[2nd Refrain]
Ron’s audio singing of We’re Just Butterflies In A Caterpillar World
“When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“We do not see things as they are;
we see things as we are.” ~ Talmud
Our mentality
is our reality.
Change your mentality,
to change your reality.
Learn to observe,
and to still your mind.
Open your mind and see its Source.
Still your mind and Be its Source.
Change your mentality
and Be Reality.
Ron’s audio recitation of Our Mentality Is Our Reality – Sutra Sayings
“The world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self.
Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self.
Man’s search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self.
The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it,
he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Knowing is bliss;
ignorance isn’t bliss
- it’s suffering.
Knowing’s not mental,
- it’s existential.
If we think we Know,
we don’t.
Knowing’s not thought,
and knowing’s not taught.
Knowing’s never then or how;
Knowing’s always here and now.
“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it.
What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably. Happiness comes from the Self and can be found in the Self only. Find your real Self and all else will come with it.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Seek first the kingdom of heaven,
which is within.”
~ Matthew 6:33; Luke 17:20-21
Q. How can we find lasting happiness? A. Know your Self, and Be your Self.
Knowingly or unknowingly, everyone wants lasting happiness.
However, most seek it futilely in outside worldly pleasures which are always impermanent.
But, ever abiding Happiness is our true inner nature – our Self.
So to find lasting happiness we must look within, not outside.
There mindfully we can uncover and abolish all illusory unhappiness ideas which obscure awareness of our true Self – which is lasting Happiness.
”Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it.
What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.”
~ Chuang-Tzu
“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”
“The soul never takes birth and never dies at any time
nor does it come into being again when the body is created.
The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable and timeless
and is never destroyed when the body is destroyed.
Just as a man giving up old worn out garments accepts other new apparel, in the same way the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies verily accepts new bodies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2
Life is perpetual;
Happiness is optional.
God gives Life eternal.
Humankind makes it sublime or infernal.
Timeless delight,
or endless night:
However we choose it,
we never can lose it.
Ron’s audio recitation of Life Is Perpetual; Happiness Is Optional
“Our problem is how to be free from all conditioning. – - – -
When the mind is completely unconditioned then only can you experience or discover if there is something real or not. A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas with assertions, with quotations is really an uncreative mind; it is merely a repetitive mind.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
Our search for remission
From ills of the human condition
Will find its fruition
As we de-condition –
The mind.
WHEN I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.
Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.
Such tensions are likely to increase as the world becomes more interconnected and cultures, peoples and religions become ever more entwined. The pressure this creates tests more than our tolerance — it demands that we promote peaceful coexistence and understanding across boundaries.
Granted, every religion has a sense of exclusivity as part of its core identity. Even so, I believe there is genuine potential for mutual understanding. While preserving faith toward one’s own tradition, one can respect, admire and appreciate other traditions.
An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist learning from the world’s other great religions.
A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to the message of both Christianity and Buddhism. In my readings of the New Testament, I find myself inspired by Jesus’ acts of compassion. His miracle of the loaves and fishes, his healing and his teaching are all motivated by the desire to relieve suffering.
I’m a firm believer in the power of personal contact to bridge differences, so I’ve long been drawn to dialogues with people of other religious outlooks. The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths. And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.
Take Judaism, for instance. I first visited a synagogue in Cochin, India, in 1965, and have met with many rabbis over the years. I remember vividly the rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity that we were both in tears. And I’ve learned how the Talmud and the Bible repeat the theme of compassion, as in the passage in Leviticus that admonishes, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In my many encounters with Hindu scholars in India, I’ve come to see the centrality of selfless compassion in Hinduism too — as expressed, for instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which praises those who “delight in the welfare of all beings.” I’m moved by the ways this value has been expressed in the life of great beings like Mahatma Gandhi, or the lesser-known Baba Amte, who founded a leper colony not far from a Tibetan settlement in Maharashtra State in India. There he fed and sheltered lepers who were otherwise shunned. When I received my Nobel Peace Prize, I made a donation to his colony.
Compassion is equally important in Islam — and recognizing that has become crucial in the years since Sept. 11, especially in answering those who paint Islam as a militant faith. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, pleading that we not blindly follow the lead of some in the news media and let the violent acts of a few individuals define an entire religion.
Let me tell you about the Islam I know. Tibet has had an Islamic community for around 400 years, although my richest contacts with Islam have been in India, which has the world’s second-largest Muslim population. An imam in Ladakh once told me that a true Muslim should love and respect all of Allah’s creatures. And in my understanding, Islam enshrines compassion as a core spiritual principle, reflected in the very name of God, the “Compassionate and Merciful,” that appears at the beginning of virtually each chapter of the Koran.
Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a time when unified action is more crucial than ever. As a species, we must embrace the oneness of humanity as we face global issues like pandemics, economic crises and ecological disaster. At that scale, our response must be as one.
Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence in our world. From this perspective, mutual understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious believers — it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is the author, most recently, of “Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World’s Religions Can Come Together.”
Originally published as an Op-Ed by New York Times on May 24, 2010
“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.
And that is because, in the last analysis,
we ourselves are part of nature
and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”
~ Max Planck
Beyond the beginning,
Beyond conception,
Beyond expression:
Omniscient
Omnipotent
Omnipresent
Intelligence.
Infinite Potentiality
for orderly,
harmonious,
multi-dimensional,
Ever evolving
manifestation,
expression, and
experience.
Beyond the beginning,
Beyond conception,
Beyond expression:
“I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains.
Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun,
go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God.
Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you
and be happy.”
~ Anne Frank
“The root of joy is gratefulness…
We hold the key to lasting happiness in our own hands.
For it is not joy that makes us grateful;
it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If you want to be happy, be.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
“Always be joyful. That is the only truly saintly state.”
~ Saint Teresa of Avila
Life is perpetual,
but happiness is optional.
It’s choice – not chance,
free will – not destiny,
that determines our happiness.
Happiness is a state of mind or no mind – an attitude –
which thoughtlessly observes and accepts “what Is”,
So, to choose happiness,
Say “yes” to Life.
Mindfully end unhappy thoughts,
and gratefully accept “what Is”.
“The greatest discovery of any generation
is that human beings can alter their lives
by altering the attitudes of their minds.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
Q. Sometimes I’m happy and sometimes I’m sad. Why aren’t I always happy? A. Even if your basic needs are satisfied and you are not suffering physically, you aren’t always happy because of your state of mind – your thoughts and moods – which are ever changing and inexorably alternating between pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness.
Q. How can I be happier?
A. By choosing happiness. Though we may not be free to choose our outer circumstances in life, we are always free to choose our attitude and thoughts about those circumstances. So, it’s choice – not chance, free will – not destiny, that mostly determines our happiness.
Q. How can I choose happiness?
A. You can choose happiness by resolutely deciding to be happy; then, by mindfully observing and discarding all thoughts of unhappiness, and by replacing them with acceptance of “what is” in your life, with gratitude for your many blessings therein, and with compassion for others.
So, you can choose happiness by gratefully saying “yes” to life.
Q. It’s easy for you to say that, but not easy for me to do that.
A. Yes, choosing happiness can be much easier said than done – but it is doable.
Just as you can always choose to put a smile on your face, however you may feel, you can always choose to identify and replace unhappy thoughts with attitudinal acceptance of “what is”, and with thoughts of gratitude and compassion; and thereby, to eliminate the negative by affirming the positive.
And by so choosing happiness, you can radically improve your life.
Since its inception following the American Civil War, Memorial Day has commemorated the passing of men and women who died while participating in US wars against and amongst other people. But many Americans have forgotten the sacred spirit with which Memorial Day was inaugurated, as they enjoy passing pleasures of a long week-end national holiday.
Now as humanity’s armed internecine conflicts continue, and as people continue dying and suffering needlessly for questionable causes, isn’t it time for us to re-dedicate Memorial Day to the sacred spirit with which it originated – a spirit recognizing and honoring the sanctity of Life?
Today we are experiencing a nuclear catastrophe in Japan against not just human life but against all life-forms on our precious planet, and against Mother Nature which birthed us all.
Until now, much of humanity has suffered illusionary psychological separation from Nature causing unsustainable ecological desecration and exploitation of our precious planet and of non-privileged sentient beings.
Isn’t it now urgently imperative for us to elevate our societal awareness and to realize at long last that Nature is our nature; that Nature knows best and will have its Way; that we are not dependent upon exploitation of our planet or others but interdependent with all life thereon; that we can no longer unsustainably exploit Nature and others without dire consequences?
In solemnly observing Memorial Day 2011, let us resolutely re-dedicate Humankind to our renewed and ever elevated awareness of the sanctity of all Life – not just human life.
And with such elevated awareness let us end insane internecine conflicts and unsustainable exploitation of our precious planet, and let us peacefully and democratically, harmoniously and happily, co-exist with each other and with all other life on our precious planet Earth.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness
that created it. ”
~ Albert Einstein
“The release of atom power ..
changed everything except our way of thinking…
the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”
~ Albert Einstein
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Humanity is evolving out of the box and into the light of creation.”
~ Ellie Crystal
Individually and societally,
Humankind have been caught in a box –
a box created by thought.
Individually, we’ve been caught in an entity identity box;
Societally, in a paradigm paradox box.
We’ve been “boxed in” by a Newtonian pre-quantum worldview.
Though science now knows that “reality” can’t be reduced
to objects or entities in space,
we’ve kept acting as if this is so.
We’ve regarded ourselves and others merely as limited and sole entities,
rather than as limitless souls – spirit drops in an infinite ocean of Eternal LIght.
And, our world-views were mostly based on these unrealistically limited
ideas of who and what we are.
So, we’ve been self-limited by our thinking
about our identities, powers and possibilities –
which are infinite,
though mostly unknown and unrealized.
But, spurred by personal and planetary crises,
and blessed with Grace,
more and more people are realizing their true nature
and awakening from their imagined fears and limitations;
and they are beginning to envision and implement
‘Out Of The Box’ solutions to current crises.
We shall soon reach a tipping point,
when a critical mass of Earth people will
have evolved ‘Out Of The Box’
and into the Light of creation,
uplifting all human consciousness
to resolve harmoniously and compassionately our critical mess
created by outmoded and illusionary thought patterns.
And so it shall be! ~ Ron Rattner
I was writing an essay about happiness as a choice; and, saying: “Though we may not be free to choose our outer circumstances in life, we are always free to choose our attitude and thoughts about those circumstances”. But, I was concerned whether SillySutra.com readers would question that statement absent some supporting confirmation. Whereupon, just as I was so reflecting, an eloquent, unexpected and previously unknown answer to my concern synchronistically arrived in my email in-box.
As I was writing, I received an email message enigmatically entitled “Breslau Prison, December 1917 — Rosa Luxemburg”. Wondering what this was about I stopped drafting the essay about choosing happiness, and opened the email. It contained an excerpt from a letter written from Breslau prison by Rosa Luxemburg, a “pacifist and revolutionary socialist, [who] was repeatedly imprisoned and eventually murdered by forces of the German Reich on January 15, 1919.” The letter excerpt eloquently fulfilled my wish for evidence that “it’s choice – not chance, free will – not destiny, that mostly determines our happiness.”
Until synchronistically receiving that mysterious message, I knew nothing about Rosa Luxemburg, so I consulted Dr. Google and Wikipedia, found an on-line copy of Rosa’s entire letter from Breslau prison, plus interesting biographies of her with photo portraits. I learned that Polish-born and Jewish “Red Rosa” had been the founder of the Polish Social Democratic Party and headed the left wing of the German Social Democratic Party; that she was a political and societal revolutionary who is now revered as ‘patron saint’ of the German left – a visionary icon like Che Guevara or Joan of Arc.
In 1917 after almost three years as an unjustly jailed political prisoner Rosa Luxemburg wrote from Breslau Prison to Sophie Liebknecht, a friend whose husband Karl Liebknecht was also a political prisoner. [Karl was co-founder with Rosa of the Spartacus League, the precursor to the German Communist Party, and like Rosa was later murdered by the German army.]
Instead of bemoaning her own fate, Rosa attempted to console Sophie who had been traumatically separated from Karl. Rosa expressed her motivation in writing thusly: “My one desire is to give you …. my inexhaustible sense of inward bliss. ….. Then, at all times and in all places, you would be able to see the beauty, and the joy of life.”
Here are eloquent excerpts from Rosa’s extraordinary letter to Sophie:
“This is my third Christmas under lock and key, but you needn’t take it to heart. I am as tranquil and cheerful as ever. —– Last night my thoughts ran this-wise: ‘How strange it is that I am always in a sort of joyful intoxication, though without sufficient cause. Here I am lying in a dark cell upon a mattress hard as stone; the building has its usual churchyard quiet, so that one might as well be already entombed; through the window there falls across the bed a glint of light from the lamp which burns all night in front of the prison. —– I lie here alone and in silence, enveloped in the manifold black wrappings of darkness, tedium, unfreedom, and winter – and yet my heart beats with an immeasurable and incomprehensible inner joy, just as if I were moving in the brilliant sunshine across a flowery mead. And in the darkness I smile at life, as if I were the possessor of charm which would enable me to transform all that is evil and tragical into serenity and happiness.
But when I search my mind for the cause of this joy, I find there is no cause, and can only laugh at myself.’
“– I believe that the key to the riddle is simply life itself, this deep darkness of night is soft and beautiful as velvet, if only one looks at it in the right way. The gride of the damp gravel beneath the slow and heavy tread of the prison guard is likewise a lovely little song of life – for one who has ears to hear.
“At such moments I think of you, and would that I could hand over this magic key to you also. Then, at all times and in all places, you would be able to see the beauty, and the joy of life; then you also could live in the sweet intoxication, and make your way across a flowery mead. Do not think that I am offering you imaginary joys, or that I am preaching asceticism. I want you to taste all the real pleasures of the senses. My one desire is to give you in addition my inexhaustible sense of inward bliss. Could I do so, I should be at ease about you, knowing that in your passage through life you were clad in a star-bespangled cloak which would protect you from everything petty, trivial, or harassing.”
The letter ended with this postscript: “Never mind, my Sonyusha; you must be calm and happy all the same. Such is life, and we have to take it as it is, valiantly, heads erect, smiling ever – despite all.”
What can we learn from imprisoned Rosa Luxemburg’s “joyful intoxication” and “inexhaustible sense of inward bliss”; her professed ability “at all times and in all places, … to see the beauty, and the joy of life.”?
Was such happiness her destiny or her choice? How was Rosa able to remain “tranquil and cheerful as ever” despite her unjust political imprisonment? How was Rosa able to selflessly and compassionately think of Sophie while suffering her own misfortune? Was there a causal relationship between Rosa’s selfless concern for others and her experience of tranquility and inner bliss? Can each of us – like Rosa Luxemburg – choose happiness with life “as it is”? Can each of us – like Rosa Luxemburg – find inner tranquility and an “inexhaustible sense of inward bliss”?
My inner and outer experiences tell me that it is possible to choose happiness despite adverse outer circumstances; that there is within each of us an ever accessible and inexhaustible Source of eternal bliss.
What do you think?
~ Ron Rattner
PS. Soon after I received the email about Rosa Luxumberg, and wrote this article, I received another synchronistically wonderful email about choosing happiness: a You Tube video showing a quadriplegic man with no arms or legs, Vic Vujicik, with an amazingly positive attitude about his life. I have embedded and posted it here: Choosing Happiness: No Arms No Legs No Worries
“Life can be found only in the present moment.
The past is gone, the future is not yet here,
and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment,
we cannot be in touch with life.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever,
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
Past is history,
Future’s mystery;
But, life is never then.
Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever,
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
Time is how
We measure now.
But, life is never when.
Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever,
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever,
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
When I was growing up, my parents subscribed to the Reader’s Digest magazine, where I sometimes read a continuing feature called: “The Most Unforgettable Person I’ve Known”. It mostly told stories about people who were unusual because they were inner – not outer – directed; people who were ‘self-actuated’ and authentic. And I began to appreciate and respect such people.
Particularly since my mid-life spiritual awakening, I have come to recognize and especially appreciate people who follow their heart and not the herd. Of all such people I’ve met, my friend Carol Schuldt is one of the most extraordinary – an amazingly free spirit with great intuitive wisdom. We met long ago while sitting at Aquatic Beach on San Francisco Bay (across from Ghirardelli Square), where she often comes to escape ocean fog and swim in the sun. Since then, we’ve had innumerable synchronistic encounters and exchanged many “miracle” stories about our lives. [I’ve posted another story about one of our most recent magical meetings called Synchronicity story: Apples and The Road Not Taken.]
Carol is such an extraordinary person that, she’s become well-known throughout and beyond her San Francisco neighborhood; so newspaper and magazine stories have been written about her. An excellent and recommended story: “A Benevolent Queen of the Beach” appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on September 25, 2000.
It tells of Carol’s exceptional inner directness even from childhood, when she adamantly refused to attend obligatory church services at Catholic school and was the only student exempted therefrom by the nuns, who recognized her extraordinary inner wisdom. The article also tells that Carol has been dedicating her life to helping troubled souls – especially young people – but that paradoxically Carol has had great family tragedy with all of her three children: her two daughters whose lives were lastingly impacted by drug addiction, and her son who was permanently brain damaged in a childhood car accident.
During the many years I’ve known Carol, she’s almost always been in good spirits whenever we’ve met. But when I saw her on a recent foggy June afternoon at Aquatic Beach, Carol seemed uncharacteristically melancholy and taciturn. And even though she had come to the beach to swim, Carol decided to stay out of the water because she was cold – a rare occurrence. As we parted that afternoon I wondered what was troubling Carol. The next night my question was answered.
Carol excitedly phoned to tell me this story, about a “miraculous” incident that had just happened:
First she explained that she had been in a deeply melancholy state for several days because of an apparent staph infection and because she’d just had great difficulty with her mentally ill daughter Simone who was then living with her. So Carol began feeling very sorry for herself and was nostalgically dwelling on happier family days when her daughters were growing up, and before their lives had gone amiss with drugs and mental illness.
Unable to shake off her deep melancholy and nostalgia, that evening Carol had just impulsively jumped into the fog-enshrouded ocean across the street from her house. Carol told me that she couldn’t recall ever before doing that, rather than swimming earlier in quieter, clearer and more secluded places. After a brief swim she emerged from the water, crossed the street in front of her house and was just about to retrieve some things from her car parked there when another car stopped beside her. A handsome man – about her daughters’ age – got out and addressed Carol.
He asked: “Are you Celeste and Simone’s mother?”
“Yes”, she replied.
Thereupon he said: “I was in love with Celeste. I’ve never seen such beautiful girls. You raised them to be beautiful and strong.”
Then looking directly in Carol’s eyes, he said: “Mom, it’s not your fault.”
Whereupon he got into his car and drove off, leaving Carol in a state of amazement.
On entering her house, Carol excitedly called me to report this “miraculous” incident while it was fresh in her memory. As Carol spoke she seemed lifted out of the dark melancholy miasma which had enveloped her. And as we talked I typed the above quotes (on my iMac) with tears in my eyes and chills up my spine – psychic signals of the deep importance to Carol of this meaningful miraculous “coincidence”.
For Carol, this incident confirmed that she has been a good mother, and is blessed with Divine protection. How do you interpret it? How did the Universe arrange it?
Ron’s moral of the story: Look for the hidden blessing in every difficult experience.
“Though we may not be free to choose our outer circumstances in life,
we are always free to choose our attitude and thoughts about those circumstances.”
~ Ron Rattner
“And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi
“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
~ Socrates
“Death is truly part of life … ‘what we called death is merely a concept’.”
“This happens at the gross level of the mind.
But neither death nor birth exist at the subtle level of consciousness that we call ‘clear light.’”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, citing Tibetan Book of the Dead.
“Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death.”
~ Gautama Buddha
“Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life now… and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.”
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“I believe there are two sides to the phenomenon known as death, this side where we live, and the other side where we shall continue to live. Eternity does not start with death. We are in eternity now.”
~ Norman Vincent Peale
“You live on earth only for a few short years which you call an incarnation, and then you leave your body as an outworn dress and go for refreshment to your true home in the spirit.”
~ White Eagle
In phenomenal polarity reality
the idea of life, implies the idea of death.
All that appears disappears.
So, to live and to know earth-life,
we must experience and know earth-death.
But to Know and to Be that Consciousness
which is eternally aware of both earth-life and earth-death,
is to know that, beyond all appearance and disappearance,
There is no death –
only That which Knows.
So, to truly know Life is to Know Death.
And to truly know death
is to Know that there is no death.
Ron’s audio recitation of Know Death to Know Life; Know Death to Know That There is No Death
“We are all cells in the body of humanity — all of us, all over the world.
Each one has a contribution to make,
and will know from within what this contribution is,
but no one can find inner peace except by working,
not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“I feel a complete protection on my pilgrimage. God is my shield.
There are no accidents in the Divine Plan nor does God leave us unattended. No one walks so safely as those who walk humbly and harmlessly with great love and great faith.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“Evil cannot be overcome by more evil. Evil can only be overcome by good. It is the lesson of the way of love.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
Peace Pilgrim - Photo by James B. Burton courtesy of Friends of Peace Pilgrim
Peace Pilgrim was an authentic American spiritual teacher whose life and words have inspired countless people worldwide. After a mid-life spiritual awakening, at age 45 she took the name Peace Pilgrim and vowed to “remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace…”.
Like Saint Francis of Assisi, she relinquished and renounced all material wealth, and for twenty eight years thereafter she walked over 25,000 miles carrying her only possessions in her clothing, which always included an outer blue tunic embroidered with the name “Peace Pilgrim”.
Wherever she went she shared deep spiritual wisdom in simple and understandable language. Peace Pilgrim was authentic, unique and universal, transcending religious, secular, or nationalistic bounds. Her life was her message. She truly walked her talk.
Following her 1981 death in a car accident, an inspiring book about Peace Pilgrim was compiled, published, and distributed freely by a small group of her dedicated friends. Later, an uplifting one hour documentary video about her was produced and distributed.
Entitled “Peace Pilgrim – Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, the book is available as a free pdf download together with much more information about Peace Pilgrim at this website http://www.peacepilgrim.com
And here is the excellent and recommended one hour documentary video about her:
Since reading the Peace Pilgrim book and watching the video, I have wondered what happened in the 1950’s to Mildred Ryder, a “normal” middle class American woman, that transformed her into an extraordinary sage and saint? How was it that without formal religious or spiritual training or discipline, she became Peace Pilgrim a saintly ascetic and renunciate communicating perennial spiritual truths, in simple understandable language with love, insight and integrity?
Perhaps, answers to these questions can be found in Peace Pilgrim’s simple yet profound words, as quoted in “Peace Pilgrim – Her Life and Work in Her Own Words” :
“As I looked about the world, so much of it impoverished, I became increasingly uncomfortable about having so much while my brothers and sisters were starving. Finally I had to find another way. The turning point came when, in desperation and out of a very deep seeking for a meaningful way of life, I walked all one night through the woods. I came to a moonlit glade and prayed. I felt a complete willingness, without any reservations, to give my life–to dedicate my life–to service. “Please use me!” I prayed to God. And a great peace came over me.” ~ Pg. 7
“There was a time – when I attained inner peace – when I died, utterly died to myself. I have since renounced my previous identity. I can see not reason to dwell upon my past, it is dead and should not be resurrected. Don’t inquire of me – ask me about my message. It is not important to remember the messenger, just remember the message.” ~ Pg. 126
“Intellectually I touched God many times as truth and emotionally I touched God as love. I touched God as goodness. I touched God as kindness. It came to me that God is a creative force, a motivating power, an over-all intelligence, an ever-present, all pervading spirit — which binds everything in the universe together and gives life to everything. That brought God close. I could not be where God is not. You are within God. God is within you.” ~ Pg. 2
“When love fills your life all limitations are gone. The medicine this sick world needs so badly is love.” ~ Pg. 12
“Of course, I love everyone I meet. How could I fail to! Within everyone is the spark of God. I am not concerned with racial or ethnic background or the color of one’s skin; all people look to me like shining lights! I see in all creatures the reflections of God. All people are my kinfolk – people to me are beautiful!” ~ Pg. 50
“If you don’t know what God’s guidance for your life is, you might try seeking in receptive silence. I used to walk receptive and silent amidst the beauties of nature. Wonderful insights would come to me which I then put into practice in my life.” ~ Pg. 76
“When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others. Inner peace is not found by staying on the surface of life, or by attempting to escape from life through any means. Inner peace is found by facing life squarely, solving its problems, and delving as far beneath its surface as possible to discover its verities and realities.” ~ Pg. 132
If you are harboring the slightest bitterness toward anyone, or any unkind thoughts of any sort whatever, you must get rid of them quickly. They are not hurting anyone but you. It isn’t enough just to do right things and say right things – you must also think right things before your life can come into harmony.” ~ Pg. 16
“How often are you worrying about the present moment? The present is usually all right. If you’re worrying, you’re either agonizing over the past which you should have forgotten long ago, or else you’re apprehensive over the future which hasn’t even come yet. We tend to skim right over the present moment which is the only moment God gives any of us to live. If you don’t live the present moment, you never get around to living at all. And if you do live the present moment, you tend not to worry. For me, every moment is a new and wonderful opportunity to be of service.” ~ Pg. 64
Like Peace Pilgrim, may each of us in our own way and in our own time discover and be guided by that universal light of Truth within every one of us. May we together live as One in peace and harmony with Nature.
“You must be the change
you want to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“My life is my message”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
What does Mahatma Gandi’s oft-quoted advice to “be the change” really mean? According to his grandson, Arun Gandhi, he was speaking after a prayer service where people said to him that the world has to change for us to change. He responded, “No, the world will not change if we don’t change.” So we must each be the change we want to see.
Because Gandhi walked his talk authentically, peacefully, and universally, his words and life were very inspiring and powerful. He changed the world by being the change he wanted see, particularly the non-violent end of the British Raj in India, followed by Indian independence and democracy.
So Gandhi’s life and words have inspired and actuated countless millions of people worldwide.
One of the those people is a talented American rapper named MC Yogi who has creatively conveyed the Mahatma’s life story in rap with rhymed words and powerful pictures.
You can listen, watch and enjoy his unique Gandhi Rap here:
Inspired by Gandhi’s example, let each of us consciously live our lives as our message. And together let us be the change we want see.
“There is only one religion,
the religion of Love.”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
“Our purpose is process -
Metamorphic process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
We learn all that matters -
We learn all that matters is LOVE!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Love is joyous consciousness.
That consciousness is the Creator,
and it is out of Love and joy
that (S)He creates.”
~ Swami Amar Jyoti
Knowingly or unknowingly, we are awakening to our true Essence and nature, which is LOVE. As we awaken we are co-creating an ever better reality – as we intend, intuit, and imagine it to be.
And thanks to Aluna Joy Yaxkin and harpist Peter Sterling,
Brian’s powerful message is displayed with beautiful multimedia, photography and music on a You Tube video.
Here is the video version:
And here is an edited version of Brian’s poem:
Love is the New Religion
On the surface of our world right now
There is war, violence, and craziness
And things may seem dark.
But calmly and quietly
At the same time
Something is happening underground.
An inner revolution is taking place
And certain individuals
Are being called to a higher light.
It is a silent revolution
From the inside out
From the ground up.
This is a global co-operation
That has sleeper cells in every nation.
It is a planetary Spiritual Conspiracy.
You won’t likely see us on T.V.
You won’t read about us in the newspaper.
You won’t hear from us on the radio.
We don’t seek glory.
We don’t wear any uniform. We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles.
We are in every country and culture of the world
In cities big and small, mountains and valleys
In farms and villages, tribes and remote islands.
Most of us work anonymously
Seeking not recognition of name
But profound transformation of life.
Working quietly behind the scenes
You could pass by one of us on the street
And not even notice.
We go undercover
Not concerned for who takes the final credit
But simply that the work gets done.
Many of us may seem to have normal jobs.
But behind the external storefront
Is where the deeper work takes a place.
With the individual and collective power
Of our minds and hearts
We spread passion, knowledge, and joy to all.
Some call us the Conscious Army
As together
We co-create a new world.
Our orders come from the Spiritual Intelligence Agency
Instructing us to drop soft, secret love bombs
when no one is looking.
Poems ~ Hugs ~ Music ~ Photography ~ Smiles ~ Kind words Movies ~ Meditation and prayer ~ Dance ~ Websites Social activism ~ Blogs ~ Random acts of kindness…
We each express ourselves
In our own unique ways
With our own unique gifts and talents.
“Be the change you want to see in the world”
That is the motto that fills our hearts.
We know this is the path to profound transformation.
We know that quietly and humbly
Individually and collectively
We have the power of all the oceans combined.
At first glance our work is not even visible.
It is slow and meticulous
Like the formation of mountains.
And yet with our combined efforts
Entire tectonic plates
Are being shaped and moved for centuries to come.
Love is the religion we come to share
And you don’t need to be highly educated
Or have exceptional knowledge to understand it.
Love arises from the intelligence of the heart
Embedded in the timeless evolutionary pulse
Of all living beings.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Nobody else can do it for you.
Yet don’t forget, we are all here supporting you.
We are now recruiting.
Perhaps you will join us
Or already have.
For in this spiritual conspiracy
All are welcome, and all are loved.
The door is always open.
May the Universe empower us to realize together our common dream for an ever better world – where LOVE is our common religion, blessing everyone everywhere.
“Nothing is permanent ‘neath heaven’s vast firmament.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Life is ineffable, change is inevitable.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“The words “This, too, will pass” are pointers toward Reality. In pointing
to the impermanence of all forms, by implication, they are also pointing to
the eternal. Only the eternal in you can recognize the impermanent as
impermanent.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth
“Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.”
~ Heraclitus (c.540 – c.475 BC)
“[T}he recognition of the impermanence of all forms awakens you to
the dimension of the formless within yourself, that which is beyond death. Jesus called it “eternal life.” ….It leads to…. nonresistance, non-judgment, and non-attachment .. the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth (edited)
“All formations are `transient’ (anicca); all formations are `subject to suffering’ (dukkha); all things are `without a self’ (anattaa)”. ~ Guatama Buddha
“Corporeality is transient, feeling is transient, perception is transient, mental formations are transient, consciousness is transient.
And that which is transient, is subject to suffering; and of that which is transient and subject to suffering and change, one cannot rightly say: `This belongs to me; this am I; this is my Self’.
Therefore, whatever there be of corporeality, of feeling, perception, mental formations, or consciousness, whether past, present or future, one’s own or external, gross or subtle, lofty or low, far or near, one should understand according to reality and true wisdom: `This does not belong to me; this am I not; this is not my Self’.”
~ Guatama Buddha
“This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.”
~ Guatama Buddha
“That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs. Everything is in process. Everything—every tree, every blade of grass, all the animals, insects, human beings, buildings, the animate and the inanimate—is always changing, moment to moment.”
~ Pema Chodron
“The First thing to understand about the universe is that no condition is “good” or “bad.” It just is. So stop making value judgments. The second thing to know is that all conditions are temporary. Nothing stays the same, nothing remains static. Which way a thing changes depends on you.”
~ Neale Donald Walsch
“We are like the spider.
We weave our life and then move along in it.
We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream.
This is true for the entire universe.”
~ The Upanishads
“All is Perfection,
but nobody’s perfect.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Incarnation is limitation.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“All people are flawed;
None are perfect.
But the most flawed,
Are those who claim or think they’re perfect.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Follow your heart, even if it contradicts my words”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Many of us intuit or believe in an omnipresent and omniscient Divine Perfection which is beyond comprehension, imagination or description. And, knowingly or unknowingly, we seek such Perfection here on Earth. But in our phenomenal duality reality “perfection” is an idea, which implies it’s opposite – imperfection. We can’t have one, without the other.
Sometimes, we may meet saintly people or spiritual teachers on whom we project and, according, in whom we perceive perfection. I have done this at times. But, ultimately, I learned from experience that incarnation is limitation, and that however evolved an incarnate being may be s/he is fallible. Here on Earth, it seems that human fallibility ‘goes with the territory’.
Once while walking in the woods with my friend Joy Massa, our beloved and venerable Hindu guru, Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, told her: “Follow your heart, even if it contradicts my words”. Thus, with saintly humility, Guruji was acknowledging to Joy even his own limitation, despite his extraordinary powers and high state of evolution. This was especially noteworthy in view of the ancient Hindu tradition of complete surrender to the Guru.
Here is an apt and insightful essay entitled “The Braid”, by spiritual author and teacher Andreas Mamet, which I endorse. Also, you may be interested in Andreas’ other writings on his blog and Facebook pages.
The Braid
by Andreas Mamet
Our quest for spiritual empowerment has at its core the association with those who we believe can assist us in our endeavors by virtue of their accomplishments. For this reason, we seek out teachers and gurus.
When we imagine how an accomplished teacher might look like or behave, we draw many inferences from our Judeo-Christian belief system, which describes God as perfect and infallible. We conclude that a person who experiences nearness to God, or even full God-Realization, is infallible. We believe that such a person is perfect in making decisions and can do no wrong. This is what I believed three decades ago, at the beginning of my spiritual journey. Now, almost 30 years later, after much observation, I have come to think otherwise. Mistakes do not stop after an individual becomes God-Realized or finds her/himself emanating more and more Divine Light. Errors of judgment remain a possibility. This was one of the more surprising realizations for me, as I believed in the myth of infallibility.
This myth is promoted often by the priest archetype, the “god professional,” in as much the following illusion is projected: God is infallible. I am close to God. Thus, I am infallible, and you need to do exactly as I say. This defines very much the traditional guru-disciple relationship of olden days, reaching into our present. It is, however, to be noted that recent decades have shown many instances wherein gurus have imploded their structures by making decisions that, in the end, displayed poor judgment and created havoc. This left their disciples spinning, forced to wonder what happened here and come to their own conclusions or responses.
One response was that the guru or teacher is so enlightened that he merely gave this experience to us as lesson to learn. That is the “denial response,” seeking to uphold the illusion of the infallible master, justifying the continuing, uncritical association of the individual with the guru arechetype. The stance of total devotion and surrender is maintained.
There is a story that deals with the theme of total surrender as is often asked of the disciple archetype. Gurdjieff, a spiritual teacher at the beginning of the twentieth century, was on a trip by car. At one point the lights stopped working, and Gurdijieff asked his disciple to sit on the hood of the car and hold a flashlight. The disciple was about to climb up to do as asked when Gurdjieff stopped him, asking, “Does it not occur to you that this is a completely idiotic request?”
Yes, there are beings who are very close to the Divine. They emanate qualities that are breathtaking. When you come into their company, powerful experiences take place instantly. It is those experiences that lead us to assume the teacher is perfect, a satguru. This assumption is an illusion. Yes, enlightenrnent may be there. But infallibility is not.
This puts the entire concept of unconditional surrender out of commission. It places upon us the need for total responsibility and minute-to-minute alertness. We are to wake up from the sleep that lets somebody else tell us what to do and how to act. Every second, we are required to display intelligent wisdom, discernment, and accept or reject what is placed before us on the grounds of this discernment. Had the Gurdjieff disciple displayed this (hard-to-attain) ability, he would have told Gurdjieff, “No.”
But, to reject the action of a being we feel is God-Realized or God-Near is a most difficult thing. We are prepared to sacrifice our common sense and intelligent discernment for an act of idiocy if we believe that God is merely testing us. To reject a Buddha is most difficult. “When you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” The Buddha himself said that. What does this mean? It means that after a thorough and deep relationship with an awakened being, the attachment is so huge, it becomes an obstacle in the disciple’s process of liberation. This is the image that I have created for myself to understand what happens in the arising of God-Nearness: It is like a braid. You take one strand of hair and braid it with another strand of hair. The strands become completely intertwined, utterly close … one section, the human; the next, the Divine.
This, to me, represents the reality of things. Hence, the entire system of Asian teachers, Tibetan lamas, and others based on surrendering to a “high consciousness” are promoting an illusion. I feel we have entered an era wherein this illusion will be revealed. The fact of the remaining humanness of the one who experiences God-Nearness will become more evident, and the old, traditional system of unconditional surrender will be recognized as inappropriate. It will gradually disappear.
This creates a problem of different kind. It remains a fact that there are those who, on the grounds of superior and long-established practice, have indeed generated a God-Nearness that supersedes our own. This simply has to be admitted and acknowledged. Respect is due where respect is due. It should be expressed. When a transmission of light and wisdom is given, respect and gratitude are to be given in return.
But we should be able to turn on a dime. The second a teaching or request is expressed that is inappropriate or simply painfully outdated (women on the left, men on the right, old patriarchal illusions and power structures promoted), it should be challenged on the spot. In this way, old traditions that simultaneously carry blessings and ignorance are stimulated by infusions of needed reform. Teachers who carry blessings and unreflected garbage of olden days are given food for thought. If these infusions are not accepted, considered to be sacrilegious gestures, then we should be willing to turn on our heels and walk.
In the end, the Divine Experience will come to us on the grounds of our longing for it. That is the basis. The longing for the Divine will fill our body with the experience of the Divine. Translate your longing into fervent, ceaseless practice. Call the Divine until the Divine is tired of hearing your voice and descends into your body completely to get rid of your crying.
“Your pain is the medicine by which the
physician within heals thyself.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.”
~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Life is a healing/wholing/gnosis/process.
Sometimes we hurt as we heal;
But our healing pains are growing pains.
And as we are healing,
Life is revealing
Ever vaster vistas
Of inner light, Love and Peace.
Ron’s audio recitation of Sometimes It Hurts To Heal
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.” ~ Buddha
“There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth, …
beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.
This is the light that shines in your Heart.”
~Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7
“As far, verily, as this world-space extends,
so far extends the space within the heart…”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.3
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
We must feel our heart
to heal our heart.
Feeling hastens healing.
A closed heart is a cold heart.
An open heart is a warm heart –
a compassionate heart.
As our heart ever opens,
its capacity for compassion ever grows.
As its boundaries expand,
so do its possibilities ever expand.
An opened heart
is an illumined heart;
a limitless, boundless heart;
a loving heart.
“If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
~William Blake
“Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.”
~ Jonathan Swift
“True vision is insight, not eyesight.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“ Seeing the Invisible is Knowing the impossible.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Behold: Reality’s Essence is Divine Luminescence.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Let the waters settle, you will see stars and moon
mirrored in your Being.”
~ Rumi
“Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception
resembles more than anything else
that celestial source from which we all are come.”
~Michelangelo
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
~ Carl Jung
“The question is not what you look at,
but what you see.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“The eyes of the soul of the multitudes
are unable to endure the vision of the Divine.”
~ Plato
“People only see what they are prepared to see.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“People think that they see, but they don’t.”
~ Henry Moore
“Everyone takes the limits of his own vision
for the limits of the world.”
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
“As a man is, so he sees.
As the eye is formed, such are its powers.”
~ William Blake
“The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight,
but has no vision.”
~ Helen Keller
“As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind,
so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.”
~ Helen Keller
”When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire
somewhat like a guinea?
O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.”
~ William Blake
“There are many paths to the top of the mountain,
but the view is always the same.”
~ Chinese Proverb
“Where there is no vision, people perish.”
~ Proverbs 29:18
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
~ Michelangelo
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery
“Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it creative observation. Creative viewing.”
~ William S. Burroughs
“The soul never thinks without a mental picture.”
~ Aristotle
“For light I go directly to the Source of light, not to any of the reflections.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision
to recognize it as such.”
~ Henry Miller
“Because our entire universe is made up of consciousness,
we never really experience the universe directly;
we just experience our consciousness of the universe,
our perception of it – so … our only universe is perception.”
~ Alan Moore
“Perception is a mirror not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”
~ A Course In Miracles
“Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious:
i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.”
~H. P. Blavatsky
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe
“In the ultimate stillness
Light penetrates the whole realm;
In the still illumination,
There pervades pure emptiness.
When I look back on the
Phenomenal world,
Everything is just
Like a dream.”
~ Han-shan Te-Ch’ing
“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this
ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”
~ Albert Einstein (after Gandhi’s 1948 assassination)
Since 9/11/2001, many people commemorate September 11 as a day that will live in infamy – a day of treachery, often cited disingenuously or duplicitously as pretense for a new era of war, violence and deprivation of civil liberties. (see eg. http://youtu.be/hZEvA8BCoBw)
But, paradoxically, few realize that – almost a century before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC – it was on a September 11 when Mahatma Gandhi launched his extraordinary “satyagraha” peace and justice movement through which Gandhi, and countless others inspired by him, have accomplished much good in the world by non-violently resisting and transforming widespread social injustice and oppression.
During and since his extraordinary lifetime, Mahatma Gandhi has been venerated worldwide as one of the greatest spiritual and political leaders not just of our time, but of all times. Because he walked his talk authentically, peacefully, and spiritually, his words and life have been exceptionally inspiring and powerful.
Gandhi changed the world by being the non-violent change he wanted see, particularly the end of the British Raj in India, followed by Indian independence and democracy. And Gandhi’s life and words have inspired and actuated countless others worldwide. Eg., inspired by Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced “satyagraha” to oppose racial segregation in the USA; and Nelson Mandela used it to end apartheid in the South Africa, where the movement began.
Gandhi’s legacy includes not just his campaign for Indian independence, but it began with his brilliantly waged struggle against institutionalized racism in South Africa, with ground-breaking inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.
On September 11, 1906, a young lawyer named Mohandas K. Gandhi organized and addressed a meeting of 3,000 people crowded into the Empire Theater in Johannesburg, South Africa. Members of the Indian community – both Moslem and Hindu – had gathered there in opposition to a proposed law that would require Indians to register, be finger-printed and carry special identity cards at all times, and which would further deprive them of civil liberties for failure to comply with the law.
Gandhi argued that the law be resisted, but warned that resisters realize that they could be jailed, fined, beaten and even killed. The assembly not only declared its opposition to the legislation; its members raised their right hands and swore, with God as their witness, that they would not submit to such a law.
Gandhi’s legendary talk at the Empire Theater meeting is dramatically portrayed by academy award winning actor Ben Kingsley in this excerpt from the epic film “Gandhi”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRCCbyLDFwQ
The next day after the meeting, the Empire Theater was mysteriously destroyed by fire.
Following their September 11th meeting and pledge, Indians refused to register and began burning their ID cards at mass rallies and protests. Thus began the 9/11 non-violence movement that would literally change the world as the most powerful positive tool for salutary social change.
Because it sought more than just non-violent redress of social injustice, Gandhi called his movement “satyagraha”, a Sanskrit neologism which he coined – meaning the “relentless pursuit of Truth”. Since Gandhi was a spiritual man in search of God, he often equated ”Truth” with “God” And he acknowledged that he had been influenced by the teachings of Jesus, the writings of Tolstoy, and Thoreau’s famous essay, “Civil Disobedience.” Thus, Gandhi’s satyagraha movement was not just political. It was relentless pursuit of spiritual Truth through the practice of active, faith-based nonviolence.
May the seeds of political and spiritual “satyagraha” first sewn by Gandhi on September 11, 1906, at long last inspire current world leaders to abandon their woefully misguided efforts to address alleged terrorist violence with more terrorist violence; and to join democratically with their peace seeking citizens in the non-violent relentless pursuit of secular and spiritual Truth, to end social injustice and oppression everywhere.
And so it shall be!
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
~ Lao-Tzu
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
“And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles.”
~ Walt Whitman
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim–the rocks–the motion of the waves–the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
“All the darkness in the world can’t extinguish the light from a single candle.”
~ Francis Of Assisi (The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi)
“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”
~ Francis of Assisi
“The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today”
~ Francis Of Assisi
“Vi volglio tutti in paradisio!” [ "I wish all in heaven!"]
~ Francis of Assisi
“Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.”
~ Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi
[September 26, 1181 - October 3, 1226]
Saint Francis of Assisi is one of history’s most beloved saints. For almost eight hundred years since his canonization by the Catholic Church (in the year 1228), he has been remembered and revered not only by Christian denominations, but by countless others world-wide, who have been inspired by his life, his teachings, and his oneness with Nature. He is patron saint of Italy and of many other places, like San Francisco, a city blessed with his name, his spirit, and a national shrine including the Porziuncola Nuova, the only papally declared holy place in the USA. Also, he is patron saint of birds, animals and ecology. Francis loved peace, communed with all living creatures, and lived a life of simplicity and poverty in contrast to the wealth and apparent corruption of the Church. He was the founder of the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church.
After living a life of youthful revelry for the first half of his short lifespan, Francis suffered a period of protracted illness. During this time, after fervent prayer, deep introspection, and profuse tears, he decided that money and worldly pleasures meant nothing to him. Thereafter, he devoted his life to solitude, prayer, and helping the poor. He lived in absolute poverty, dedicating himself to God and patterning his life after the life of Jesus.
On returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, where he begged at Church doors for the poor, Francis received a mystical message from Jesus while praying in the ruined church at San Damiano outside of Assisi. Francis was praying there when a voice emanating from the painted wooden crucifix instructed him: “Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins.” Thereafter, he devotedly began rebuilding San Damiano and other ruined churches.
Though Saint Francis took literally that mystical message from the crucifix, its true meaning was metaphoric and profound. And by the end of his short lifespan, Saint Francis and his order had by their example inspired a renaissance of the Catholic Church from its then apparent corruption by worldly wealth.
Francis’ exemplary lifestyle inspired and attracted followers who joined with him in his in his Divine mission and life of poverty. Clad in ragged, gray robes with rope belts, they went out barefoot in pairs to spread the Gospel. When they needed food or shelter, they asked someone for it. It was against their rules to “own” anything. Thus, they were known as the “begging brothers”.
In 1209 Francis received permission from Pope Innocent III to form a brotherhood, a religious order of the Church called the “Friars Minor,” (littlest brothers). As “friars” they worked in communities, actively preaching and helping residents, as distinguished from “monks” who then usually lived alone in isolated places. They soon acquired the name “Franciscans”, proliferated and today remain important international symbols and instruments of Francis’ legacy.
The Franciscans’ first headquarters was a simple, tiny chapel near Assisi which Francis received from the Benedictines, and personally restored and named “Porziuncola” [“a small portion of land”]. The Porziuncola became Francis’ most beloved and favorite place. Because of his presence and prayers there, it was and continues to be one of the world’s rare holy places.
In 1216, while Francis was fervently praying in the Porziuncola, a light filled the chapel and he beheld above the altar a vision of Christ, the Virgin Mary and a company of angels. They asked him what he wanted for the salvation of souls. Francis replied: “Vi volglio tutti in paradisio!” [I wish all in heaven!] And Francis then asked that all those persons who shall come to this church, may obtain a full pardon and remission of all their faults, upon confessing and repenting their sins. The request was granted based on Francis’ worthiness, and the indulgence was later officially confirmed by Pope Honorius III, and became known as “The Pardon of Assisi”.
Francis was extremely democratic and humble. He referred to himself as “little brother Francis” and called all creatures “brothers” and “sisters”. He loved Nature and pantheistically considered it to be the “mirror of God on earth.” He spoke of “Sister Water” and “Brother Tree” and in one of his writings, he referred to “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon”. There are legends about sermons he preached to trees full of “Sister Birds” in which Francis urged them to sing their prayers of thanks to God. And it is said that rabbits would come to him for protection.
In another legendary story, Francis spoke to a wolf which had been terrifying the entire village of Gubbio, scolding “Brother Wolf” for what he was doing. That wolf not only stopped his attacks but later became a village pet, and was fed willingly by the same villagers, who missed “brother wolf” after he died.
Near the end of his earthly life, Francis became the first saint in history to miraculously receive crucifixion stigmata. It happened after he had been taken to Mount Alverna, a wild nature place in Tuscany, to be in solitude for a forty day retreat.
Though already in a very feeble state, he fasted and prayed intensely with deepest longing for God. In the midst of his fast, while he was so praying he beheld a marvelous vision: an angel carrying an image of a man nailed to a cross. When the vision disappeared, Francis felt sharp pains in various places on his body.
In locating the source of these pains, Francis found that he had five marks or “stigmata” on his hands, feet, and sides—like the wounds inflicted with nails and spears on Jesus during His crucifixion. Those marks remained and caused Francis great pain until his death two years later.
On October 3, 1226 A.D. Francis died in a humble cell next to the beloved Porziuncola, his favorite holy place where the Franciscan movement began. He was blind, ill, emaciated and racked with pain from the “stigmata” wounds. As he lay dying, the brothers came for his blessing. They sang “Song to the Sun”, a song which Francis had composed. Sometime before he drew his last breath, he said, “Let us sing the welcome to Sister Death.” Francis welcomed ‘Sister Death’ knowing that “it is in dying that we are reborn to eternal life”, the concluding line of his beautifully inspiring and best known prayer.
In conclusion, we offer that prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi in grateful tribute to his blessed life and legacy. May he ever inspire countless beings to become instruments of Divine peace and love, in perfect harmony with Nature and the kingdom of heaven. “Vi vogliamo tutti in Paradiso”; “We wish ALL in Heaven”.
And so it shall be!
Prayer Of St. Francis Of Assisi *
Beloved, we are instruments of Thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
despair, hope;
darkness, light;
discord, harmony;
sadness, joy;
Divine Mother/Father, grant
that we may seek not so much
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving, that we receive;
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying – to ego life –
that we are reborn to Eternal Life.
[ *Edited by Ron Rattner]
Ron’s audio recitation of the Prayer of Saint Francis Of Assisi
Mohandas K. Gandhi (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948)
Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in India on October 2, 1869, over one hundred forty years ago. He came to be known and loved by the Indian people and worldwide as “Mahatma”, an honorary Sanskrit term meaning “Great Soul”, like the term “Saint” in Christianity.
Gandhi helped change the world by being the change he wanted see. Though he realized that his life was his message, he regularly wrote down his philosophical ideas on subjects of universal importance.
Because Gandhi walked his talk authentically, peacefully, and universally, his words – like his life – will be remembered for centuries, and will continue to inspire and actuate countless millions of people worldwide.
So, in tribute to this great soul, let us recall some of his inspiring words of wisdom:
“You must be the change
you want to see in the world.”
“In a gentle way you can shake the world..”
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
“A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.”
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present.
God has given me no control over the moment following.”
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end they always fall—think of it. Always.”
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”
“Prayer has saved my life, without it I should have been a lunatic long ago. I feel that as food is indispensable for the body so was prayer indispensable for the soul. I find solace in life and in prayer. With the Grace of God everything can be achieved. When His Grace filled one’s being nothing was impossible for one to achieve.
“Prayer is nothing else but an intense longing of the heart. You may express yourself through the lips; you may express yourself in the private closet or in the public; but to be genuine, the expression must come from the deepest recesses of the heart…
“It is my constant prayer that I may never have a feeling of anger against my traducers, that even if I fall a victim to an assassin’s bullet, I may deliver my soul with the remembrance of God upon my lips.”
“All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.”
“My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.”
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist and Confucian.”
“Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.”
“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”
“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”
“I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man, and believing as I do in the theory of reincarnation, I live in the hope that if not in this birth, in some other birth I shall be able to hug all of humanity in friendly embrace.”
“Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”
“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of all creation as oneself.”
“What do I think of Western civilization?
I think it would be a very good idea.”
Like Gandhi, may each of us be inspired “from the deepest recesses of the heart” to live in “in a gentle way” that will bless all life on our precious planet.
At my death do not lament our separation
… as the sun and moon but seem to set,
in reality this is a rebirth.
~ Rumi
“Death is truly part of life … ‘what we called death is merely a concept’.”
“This happens at the gross level of the mind.
But neither death nor birth exist at the subtle level of consciousness that we call ‘clear light.’”
~ Dalai Lama
“Birth and death are virtual,
but Life is perpetual.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
On observing noteworthy phenomena which we can’t yet explain by known natural or scientific laws, we sometimes call them “miracles” and may attribute them to a Divine power.
Like other rare saints and mystics Shri Dhyanyogi (“Guruji”) occasionally demonstrated “miracles” to foster faith in the Divine. In his writings and lectures, Guruji explained that yogic powers (siddhis) might be attained via control of life-force energies, but that they were seldom displayed; that such powers are used “sparingly and on occasion for humanitarian and other discretionary ends,” but not “for self-aggrandizement.”
Previously, I told you my belief that Guruji has helped me from subtle planes, like a ‘guardian angel’, ever since I met him when he was approximately one hundred years old, and even after he died in India sixteen years later.
I believe that Guruji left his body consciously and intentionally, using his yogic powers; that his mental body survived the death of the physical body; and, that from subtle planes he continues to help humanity.
I’d like to explain to you my reasons for this belief.
In the Hindu tradition, when a yogi who has previously experienced the highest state of samadhi intentionally leaves his body, this is not the same as death of an ordinary person who has not attained self-realization. Such a passing is called a Mahasamādhi (great and final samādhi) and is the act of consciously and intentionally leaving one’s body at the time of physical death.
When I received shaktipat initiation from Guruji in 1978, I had already witnessed his yogic power to influence this level of reality from subtle planes. He had clearly appeared in my subtle inner vision when we were physically distant. Thereafter, I had other experiences of Guruji’s subtle powers, which I will later share with you.
Also, at Guruji’s meditation programs, I heard amazing stories from others who had experienced his extraordinary yogic powers. Perhaps the most memorable of these stories was that of Rudy, a Chicago teacher who decided to travel on his motorcycle to spend time with Guruji in California. But before reaching California, and while he was in Colorado, Rudy had an unexpected and “miraculous meeting” with Guruji.
On a curvy mountain highway in Colorado, Rudy’s motorcycle skidded off the road and careened three hundred feet down a steep incline. Just before hitting bottom, Rudy called out Guruji’s name, remembering Guruji’s assurance that “I’m always with you.”
Gravely injured, Rudy became comatose. In that comatose state he had a “near death experience” (NDE), which miraculously he survived, and later recounted in detail.
There on ‘the other side’ to greet and guide Rudy, and to save his life was Dhyanyogi. Thereafter, at a California retreat Guruji explained to Rudy that he had saved his life because Rudy still had much more work to do in this world.
Rudy’s vividly credible description of this amazing incident compellingly impressed me with Guruji’s power to manifest at will on subtle planes of “reality” and to thus influence what happens in this “reality”.
Besides my own extraordinary experiences with Guruji, and hearing of Rudy’s experience, I learned about numerous other “miraculous” experiences of Guruji’s devotees. (See eg“This House is on Fire, The Life of Shri Dyanyogi”, as told by Shri Anandi Ma.)
But one of my most memorable mystical experiences of Guruji happened after he left his physical body. At the end of August 1994, when Guruji was in India and I was in San Francisco, I was home asleep when I was suddenly awakened in the middle of the night.
With eyes open, I beheld in amazement an extraordinary and unprecedented vision – an otherworldly, multi-colored bird, translucent with a peacock-like tail and human-like eyes. Nothing about the bird appeared like any ‘real-life’ bird I had ever before seen, or might have imagined.
As I gazed in awe at this ethereal vision, I was enveloped and transformed by a supernal aura of supreme Peace, which emanated from the bird’s radiant dark human-like eyes. I awakened in the morning puzzled, and wondered about that extraordinary vision which had enveloped me with ‘peace that passeth understanding.’
The next day, still wondering about the vision, I was sitting at my dining room table when an ‘inner voice’ dictated to me a poem about death, a subject I hadn’t then been thinking about.
Listening to my muse, I quickly and spontaneously “channeled” this poem about death:
When we come to Earth
They call it a birth.
When we leave,
They say we die.
But we really don’t come,
And we really don’t go.
We just dream our lives,
But why?
To awaken as Bliss
From all of this,
Joyous that all is
“I”.
Thereafter, within a day or two, I received a rare call from one of Guruji’s early US disciples, Elyse (Indu) of Sacramento. She informed me of Guruji’s death – his Mahasamādhi – on August 29. Only then did I understand why I had been given this profound poem about death. And I immediately recognized it as a parting gift and message from Guruji.
So I recited the poem for Elyse. Then I told her about my puzzling otherworldly bird vision. She promptly and aptly interpreted that vision as a mythical Phoenix bird, symbol of immortality, resurrection, and life after death.
Thereupon, I realized that the bird’s human-like eyes emanating supernal Peace were Guruji’s eyes; and, that this unforgettable vision with experience of celestial peace was another parting gift and message from Guruji.
Seventeen years have passed since that miraculous experience of Guruji’s Mahasamādhi, but I still continue to feel his subtle presence and often shed tears of devotion and joy, when I think of him or gaze at his photographic image.
He once said: “All those who came to me for Shaktipat …. are my spiritual heirs. For my energy works through them.”
With utmost gratitude, I deeply feel that my continuing experience of Guruji validates his statement and supports my faith that he continues to help humanity, including Ron, even after his Mahasamādhi .
“We get what we need when we need it.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Look at the birds of the air;
they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not much more valuable than they?
~ Matthew 6:26
See how the lilies of the field grow.
They do not labor or spin.
Yet I tell you that
not even Solomon in all his splendor
was dressed like one of these.
~ Matthew 6:28-29
But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know that
the hand of the LORD has done this?
~ Job 12:7-9
Last Sunday morning I awakened to a gorgeous sunny and warm November day. After showering and watering my plants, I dressed and happily walked to the new Fort Mason farmers market. After chatting with farmer sellers and shoppers, and filling my cloth shopping bag with some delicious organic veggies, I was ready to return home. But it was just too lovely not to be outdoors.
So I decided to walk out to the end of the San Francisco Municipal Pier, one of my favorite walking destinations. Usually I hike there in the afternoons after eating brunch, my first meal. But daylight savings time had ended and afternoons had been getting cloudy and cool at my usual walking time. So I decided to ‘make hay while the sun shines’ and walk to the pier before eating.
To get from the farmers market onto the path to the pier, I needed to climb up a very steep concrete stairway, perhaps the equivalent of four or five apartment building stories. Gratefully I climbed the stairs with alacrity and walked out onto the pier carrying my bag of veggies, happily chatting with strangers along the way. But as I started going home my body began ‘running out of steam’, since it hadn’t been refueled since Saturday night and wasn’t accustomed to walking before eating.
I decided that I needed to rest somewhere before walking home. So I took a ‘detour’ route into Fort Mason where I planned to sit on a sunny bench in the community garden there. But the detour route required me to climb another steep bank of concrete stairs about as high as the others I’d ascended.
By the time I approached the garden, I was a bit ‘pooped’ and ready to rest for a while to recharge my body’s batteries. Just as I reached the garden gate, I was greeted with a smile by a very friendly lady who was about to leave, and asked: “How are you today?” I told her I had just climbed some steep stairs and needed to rest on the garden bench before walking home.
Whereupon, to my amazement, she asked “would you like me to give you a ride home?” I felt reluctant to impose on her generosity if she would have to drive out of her way to take me home. So I asked where she’d been planning to drive before meeting me at the gate. She said “I’m your neighbor Jan Monahan, and I’m going to same building where we both live.” Only then, to my embarrassment, did I recognize her. She was wearing sun glasses and a cap, and never before in the twenty five years that we’ve been neighbors had I ever seen her away from our apartment building.
I then promptly accepted Jan’s offer, got into her Honda and was quickly taken home with my bag of fresh veggies. Jan drove right into the garage. So I got out of her car, into the elevator, and rode up to my high-rise hermitage without any further exertion or enervation.
And I ate my late lunch, with ever growing gratitude for this miraculous life and its wondrous blessings.
Moral of the story:
Synchronicities can infuse us with feelings of awe and gratitude for our miraculous and mysterious Life on this precious planet, and remind us that we are part of Nature, interdependent with all Life everywhere.
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues,
but the parent of all others.”
~ Cicero
“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
~ Rumi
“Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence …
For thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”
~ Rumi
“You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy.”
~ Buddha
“It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
“To be a presence of perpetual thanksgiving may be the ultimate goal of life.
The thankful person is the one for whom life is simply one long exercise in the sacred.”
~ Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB from The Psalms: Meditations for Every Day of the Year
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
~ Meister Eckhart
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”
~ Buddha
“I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God.”
~ Helen Keller
“O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.”
~ William Shakespeare
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.”
~ Aesop
“Gratitude is heaven itself.”
~ William Blake
“No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.”
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
“Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.”
~ Psalm 100
“Join me in the pure atmosphere of gratitude for life.
Join my eyes and soul in their divine applause.”
~ Hafiz
“When you allow your heart to open to the universe’s flow of love, gratitude comes with that flow. Gratitude for the people that you love, and for those who share your life. Gratitude for the Creation of the beautiful Earth as our home in this great cosmos. Gratitude for the Sun that gives us life. Gratitude for being alive, for just existing, for being in the flow of the wonder of life.”
~ Owen Waters
“Gratitude flows unimpeded from an open heart. When you allow it, gratitude will flow as freely as the sunshine, unobstructed by judgments or conditions.”
~ Owen Waters
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.”
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti
I thank you God for most this amazing day
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky,
and for everything which is natural
which is infinite
which is yes….
I who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun’s birthday;
this is the birth day of life and of love and wings…
~ e. e. cummins
“When we develop a right attitude of compassion and gratitude,
we take a giant step towards solving our personal and international problems.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
It’s not our latitude
Or our longitude,
But the elevation of our attitude,
That brings beatitude.
***
So an attitude of gratitude
Brings beatitude.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Remember with gratitude,
Life is beatitude –
Even its sorrows and pain;
For we’re all in God’s Grace,
Every time, every place, and
Forever (S)HE will reign!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence …
For thankfulness brings you to the place
where the Beloved lives.”
~ Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight . . .
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~ Rumi
“Nature is our nature; honoring Nature is honoring your Self.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
~ Job 12:7-9
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”
~ Albert Einstein
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“Because after all, you ARE a symptom of nature. You, as a human being, you grow out of this physical universe in exactly the same way an apple grows off an apple tree.”
~ Alan Watts
“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.”
~ e.e. cummings
In these ecologically critical times, may we elevate our societal awareness and realize at long last: that Nature is our nature; that Nature knows best and will have its Way; that we are not dependent upon exploitation of our planet or its lifeforms but interdependent with all life thereon; that we can no longer unsustainably exploit Nature and others without dire consequences; that we must honor – not desecrate – Nature.”
“We must believe in free will, we have no choice.”
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
“There is no such thing as chance;
and what seems to us merest accident
springs from the deepest source of destiny.”
~ Friedrich Schiller
“Since we cannot change reality,
let us change the eyes which see reality.”
~ Nikos Kazantzakis
“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust –
we all dance to a mysterious tune,
intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
~ Albert Einstein
“What really interests me is whether God had any Choice in the creation of the world.”
~ Albert Einstein
“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“Inflamed by greed, incensed by hate, confused by delusion, overcome by them, obsessed by mind, a man chooses for his own affliction, for others’ affliction,
for the affliction of both and experiences pain and grief”
~ Buddha
“Life is the sum of all your choices.”
~ Albert Camus
“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it,
that is in itself a choice.”
~ William James
“God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.
Take which you please – you can never have both.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.”
~ Leo Buscaglia
“I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.”
~ A Course In Miracles
“Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedom — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
~ Viktor Frankl
“I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.
Therefore choose life.”
~ Deuteronomy 30:19
“Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him,
and then choose that way with all his strength. ”
~ Hasidic Saying
“You will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
“You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6
“Your own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise
of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga
“To Know Thyself is to know the Whole.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“You cannot teach an ego to be anything but egotistic,
even though egos have the subtlest ways of pretending to be reformed.
The basic thing is therefore to dispel, by experiment and experience,
the illusion of oneself as a separate ego.”
~ Alan Watts
“If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi
For millennia there has been a tacit taboo or ‘conspiracy of silence’ against disclosing to all Humankind our true spiritual and immortal identity.
Except for those raised in so-called ‘primitive’ or indigenous societies, most people have been acculturated from time immemorial into societies with “an unrecognized but mighty taboo—[a] tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are.” ( Alan Watts: The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Introduction.)
From childhood we are taught to self-identify only with an illusory and disempowering ego image; with a separate name, gender, and story about who and what we are. We are taught that we are each born into Nature as limited beings; but, not that Nature is our nature, or that we are Beings of Light sharing limitless immortal common consciousness with all life-forms.
Nor are we ever taught the greatest “secret of secrets”: that we are not mere powerless perceivers of our “reality”, but also its co-creators – that we co-create our reality with our thoughts, words and deeds; that everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way; and, that this worldly “reality” is dependent upon the awareness with which we envision, experience and co-create it.
To experientially realize that greatest “secret of secrets” is to Know Thyself. And to Know Thyself, is to know the Whole – the Truth that will set you free.
But until now that greatest secret has been mostly suppressed and hidden, often by institutions and individuals seeking selfish hierarchical exploitation of our precious planet and all its life-forms and resources.
Until now ignorance our true identity and immortality, has resulted in our hallucination of separation from Nature, from each other, and from our sole Self and spirit, with consequent destructive insanity, selfishness and suffering.
But now, facing ominous and enormous ecological and financial crises which cannot be resolved from the same levels of consciousness which created them, we are at long last being awakened from our delusion of separateness and powerlessness. Spurred by increasing suffering and awareness of imminent catastrophe, we are finally dispelling the ignorance which has spawned these crises.
And we shall soon reach a tipping point, when a critical mass of Humankind will have awakened to the “secret of secrets”, uplifting all human consciousness and resolving harmoniously and compassionately the critical mess created by our prior unawareness of that “secret”.
Thus awakened, we shall harmoniously, cooperatively and lovingly resolve our common crises for our common good.
“Look how the caravan of civilization
has been ambushed.
Fools are everywhere in charge.
Do not practice solitude like Jesus.
Be in the assembly, and take charge of it.”
~ Rumi
“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume
that someone else will solve their problems.
Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction.
Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”
~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from “The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’,
a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”
~ Albert Einstein ( N. Y. Times , March 29, 1972)
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Isn’t this a time for people who intuitively experience our spiritual common essence and nature to become politically engaged?
We live in an age of mental malaise; the Hindus call it Kaliyuga. Our precious planet is polluted by human ignorance and greed. “The more that money rules the World, the more that money ruins the World.”
We have degenerated into an insane society, unconsciously committing mass suicide by ecocide.
Unrestrained corporate capitalism coercively and insidiously exploits vulnerable people and myopically plunders, depletes and corrupts finite planetary resources which sustain life. Billions of people suffer needless poverty, starvation and avoidable disease, while obscenely privileged corporate, political and religious plutocrats greedily acquire power and excessive material wealth far beyond their conceivable needs.
Life as we know it is threatened by environmental catastrophe or nuclear annihilation, possibly precipitated by corrupt world “leaders”. People are so crazy that they are myopically scuttling Spaceship Earth; destroying the life support systems which sustain us.
Even in “advanced” countries, it is virtually impossible now to breath air or drink water which is not in some way polluted by our species. Agricultural soils have been depleted and corrupted. Global weather patterns and hydrologic systems have been materially disrupted by human activities; protective atmospheric ozone is being depleted. Glaciers are melting; long frozen Arctic tundra is thawing. Though non-polluting alternative technologies are available and feasible they are considered “economically” impractical.
No one is protected. By “bio-engineering” living organisms we are even tampering and blindly experimenting with our genetic origins. From birth (and even prenatally) every person’s body/mind is polluted by numerous and ubiquitous manmade chemical and radioactive materials, many of which are carcinogenic.
Many species are rapidly becoming extinct. Around the world, thousands of birds are suddenly falling dead out of the sky, and countless dead fish are appearing on shores of rivers, lakes and oceans. The oceans are polluted with our detritus, and much marine life is threatened. Even remote Arctic polar bears are becoming hermaphroditic because of phthalates and other chemicals dispersed by humankind, and they are threatened with destruction of the ecosystem on which they depend for survival.
So, how should ‘spiritually’ conscious people live and be in this crazy World, in which spiritual values seem forgotten? Do we not see omens, portents or signs of impending catastrophe?
As we widen our circle of compassion to embrace the whole of Nature and all living creatures, does it become our moral responsibility to help solve imminent ecological crises? If so, how?
Should we “become actively engaged” as the Dalai Lama suggests? If so, how?
Can we, with heartfelt common intention and spiritual vision, co-create salutary solutions to the immense challenges facing us? If so, how?
Here are observations by the Dalai Lama from which we may draw inspiration and motivation, counseling that we must act to solve ecological crises and restore peace “before it is too late”:
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, …Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.
~ Albert Einstein, as quoted in his New York Times Obituary, April 19, 1955)
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was not only a great scientist but a wise philosopher and a pragmatic “true mystic” … “of a deeply religious nature.” (New York Times Obituary, April 19, 1955)
Einstein did not believe in a formal, dogmatic religion, but was religiously and reverently awed and humbled with a cosmic religious feeling by the immense beauty and eternal mystery of our Universe.
He often commented publicly on religious and ethical subjects, and thereby he became widely respected for his moral integrity and mystical wisdom, as well as for his scientific genius.
In an essay entitled The World As I See It, first published 1933, Einstein explained his reverence for God as Eternal Universal Intelligence. But he rejected prevalent religious ideas of individual survival of physical death, reincarnation, or of reward or punishment in heaven or hell after physical death. He said:
I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. [The World As I See It]
On learning of the death of lifelong friend, Einstein wrote in a March 1955 letter to his friend’s family:
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Einstein’s rejection of afterlife contradicted many religious teachings and credible experiential accounts of individual afterlife and reincarnation. But it was consistent with Einstein’s revolutionary scientific paradigm and with highest non-dualistic Eastern religious teachings, the most ancient extant of which is Hindu Advaita Vedanta philosophy.
Einstein revolutionized Western science with his 1905 groundbreaking theory of relativity that “mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing”; that there was an equivalence between all matter and energy in the universe, quantifiable by the simple equation e = mc2. On his arrival in New York in 1919, Einstein summarized his theory of relativity in the single sentence: “Remove matter from the universe and you also remove space and time.” Clerk R.W., Einstein: His Life and Times (1973)
Though Vedic rishis or seers had anticipated Einstein by millennia, their teachings were largely unknown in the West until shortly before Einstein revolutionized Western science. The ancient Vedic Advaita teachings were first brought to large Western audiences by Swami Vivekananda – who came to the West as Indian delegate to the 1893 Parliament of World Religions.
Vivekananda, who was principle disciple of nineteenth century Indian Holy Man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, eloquently explained that according to Advaita philosophy this impermanent and ever changing world is an unreal illusion called maya or samsara; and, that “all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream”…
In an eloquent New York City lecture called “The Real and the Apparent Man”, he equated maya or samsara with “time, space, and causation” and presciently predicted scientific confirmation of the ancient Vedic non-dual philosophy of One Infinite Existence. He said:
According to the Advaita philosophy, ..this Maya or ignorance–or name and form, or, as it has been called in Europe, time, space, and causality–is out of this one Infinite Existence showing us the manifoldness of the universe; in substance, this universe is one. So long as any one thinks that there are two ultimate realities, he is mistaken. When he has come to know that there is but one, he is right. This is what is being proved to us every day, on the physical plane, on the mental plane, and also on the spiritual plane.
What then becomes of all this threefold eschatology of the dualist, that when a man dies he goes to heaven, or goes to this or that sphere, and that the wicked persons become ghosts, and become animals, and so forth? None comes and none goes, says the non-dualist. How can you come and go? You are infinite; where is the place for you to go?
So it is with regard to the soul; the very question of birth and death in regard to it is utter nonsense. Who goes and who comes? Where are you not? Where is the heaven that you are not in already? Omnipresent is the Self of man. Where is it to go? Where is it not to go? It is everywhere. So all this childish dream and puerile illusion of birth and death, of heavens and higher heavens and lower worlds, all vanish immediately for the perfect. For the nearly perfect it vanishes after showing them the several scenes up to Brahmaloka. It continues for the ignorant.
“Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen. In the Absolute there is neither time, space nor causation.”
“Science and religion will meet and shake hands…When the scientific teacher asserts that all things are the manifestation of one force, does it not remind you of the God of whom you hear in the Upanishads? Do you not see whither science is tending?”
“…this separation between man and man, between nation and nation, between earth and moon, between moon and sun. Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery. But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”
“Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind. We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga
Einstein’s non-mechanistic science was very difficult for Western materialist minds to comprehend because his mystical view questioned the substantiality of matter and the ultimate reality of space, time and causality. Like Vivekananda, he said:
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”
“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”
Thus, Einstein’s rejection of prevalent religious ideas about God and individual survival of physical death and afterlife was consistent with his revolutionary science as well as with Eastern non-dualistic teachings explained by Vivikenanda that apparent separation between subject and object is an unreal “optical illusion of consciousness.”
Did Einstein’s psyche survive his death? Was he surprised on his demise?
Though Einstein didn’t believe in individual survival of physical death, he may have been surprised on his demise. Conservation of energy is basic to physics. So Einstein must have realized that his subtle energetic essence was indestructible and could only be transformed from one state to another. But we don’t know how that knowledge may have influenced his opinion about what happens on individual death, or his experience thereafter.
Except for very rare Buddha-like people who transcend all desires, it is probable that all humans survive physical death as psyches or mental bodies, irrespective of their beliefs. So the Dalai Lama has said:
“[Physical qualities] cannot be carried over into the next life.
The continuum of the mind, however, does carry on.
Therefore, a quality based on the mind is more enduring. …
So, through training the mind, qualities such as compassion, love, and the wisdom
realizing emptiness can be developed.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, from Practicing wisdom: the perfection of Shantideva’s Bodhisattva way
Thus, Buddhists say that Gautama Buddha experienced countless incarnations over eons of time before ultimately transcending the cycle of birth and death. And the Dalai Lama has said:
“We are born and reborn countless number of times, and it is possible that each being has been our parent at one time or another. Therefore, it is likely that all beings in this universe have familial connections.”
~ H. H. Dalai Lama, from ‘The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”.
But, rather than wondering if on demise of Einstein’s physical body and extraordinary brain, his subtle mental body survived – with its unfulfilled desire to find a single simple “unified field” formula explaining phenomenal reality from perspective of ‘the mind of God’ – let us honor his immense evolutionary accomplishments and take inspiration from his compassionate social activism, and pragmatic wisdom.
And thereby let us learn to live ever more peacefully, harmoniously and skillfully, in this ever changing phenomenal world of space, time and causation, as together we evolve out of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of Eternal Awareness.
“To understand everything is to forgive everything”
~ Buddha
“Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth about your self return to your memory.”
~ Course in Miracles
If you are harboring the slightest bitterness toward anyone, or any unkind thoughts of any sort whatever, you must get rid of them quickly. They are not hurting anyone but you. It isn’t enough just to do right things and say right things – you must also think right things before your life can come into harmony.”
~ “Peace Pilgrim – Her Life and Work in Her Own Words” Pg. 16
Most religions teach the importance of forgiving or atoning for transgressions committed by or against us – our “sins”. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism teach forgiveness.
Forgiveness is particularly important in Christianity.
Thus, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly taught forgiveness.
Eg. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
~ Luke 6:37
And even while in excruciating pain as he was dying on a cross, Jesus beseeched God’s forgiveness of those who crucified him: “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”
~ Luke 23: 34
In emphasizing “they know not what they do” Jesus invoked Divine forgiveness in response to apparent unwitting (rather than willful) sins of the Roman soldiers who crucified him.
“Sins” are often considered acts or omissions violating moral or ethical codes, with emphasis on what is wrong.
But the original meaning of “sin” in Greek is to miss the mark – like an archer missing the target. If sin is considered ‘missing the mark’, expiation requires that we focus on what is right, and on what we should do to get back ‘on target’, rather than on what was wrong with a mistaken act or omission.
Thus to transcend the negative, we realize the positive.
“There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges – the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“It requires honesty to see whether you still harbor grievances, whether there is someone in your life you have not completely forgiven, an “enemy.” If you do, become aware of the grievance both on the level of thought as well as emotion, that is to say, be aware of the thoughts that keep it alive, and feel the emotion that is the body’s response to those thoughts. Don’t try to let go of the grievance. Trying to let go, to forgive, does not work. Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self, to keep the ego in place. The seeing is freeing.”
“Jesus’ teaching to “Forgive your enemies” is essentially about the undoing of one of the main egoic structures in the human mind. The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of “original sin.” Sin is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering. Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
In the Jewish tradition, the highest of High Holy Days is Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement and forgiveness. While fasting on that day, observant Jews communally confess their wrongs and ask Divine forgiveness, humbly acknowledging that there are none amongst them so righteous that they have not sinned.
[“Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins,"
~ Ecclesiastes 7:20]
And whenever Jews realize that they have erred, the Torah – the Jewish Bible – obligates them to return to a righteous path with a process of repentance and reparation called teshuvah. “Teshuvah means returning to God and godliness.”; and returning to God is the essence of Judaism. ~ Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro,“Open Secrets”, pp.12-13
The ‘atonement’ process of returning to God which is the essence of Judaism is also the essence of all other major religions. It is a process of transcending ego’s hallucination of imagined separation from Source – from our ultimate Essence and true nature – and of returning to a psychological state of ‘original blessing’; a state of “At-one-ment” with the ONE inconceivable and indescribable universal Awareness or Intelligence – often called God.
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.”
“… joy and sorrow are inseparable. . .
together they come and when one sits alone with you . . .
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
After a period of many overcast and rainy San Francisco days, I awakened Monday morning gratefully beholding the sun shining on the City and the Bay. So, I decided to enjoy the day with a morning walk in the sun before my noon appointment at Soul Works chiropractic.
But first, I went on-line and attended to current emails and SillySutras.com website issues. Consulting ‘Dr. Google’, I discovered a suggested code change which might correct a non-functioning website plugin that had stopped working months ago. Then, shortly before I planned to begin my walk in the sun, I decided to try correcting the faulty plugin, and made the suggested code change. But when I pushed the “save” button at the bottom of the plugin edit page, everything went blank – both SillySutras.com and my WordPress administrative dock.
So, it appeared that my website was down and blanked out, and that – unable to access my administrative page – I needed immediate help from others to fix it. But I realized that if I then tried getting help, I wouldn’t have time for a walk and my noon chiropractic appointment. Nonetheless, instead of postponing my walk and appointment, I decided intuitively to walk in the sun and to my chiropractic appointment leaving the website blanked-out. That spontaneous decision was contrary to my long-time lawyer’s habit of quickly and compulsively correcting any such problems.
After a delightfully brisk walk through Fort Mason open space and onto the SF Municipal Pier jutting into SF Bay, I arrived at Soul Works chiropractic in a very happy mood. But I was still wondering about my blanked-out website. So I asked Adriene, the lovely new Soul Works receptionist, if she would check SillySutras.com to see if it was visible or down.
Adriene told me that “synchronistically” she too has a WordPress website, and she immediately understood my problem. She checked my website and found that it was blank – just a white page with absolutely no public display or data. So, she recommended that I contact my web hosting service as soon as possible.
At other times I might have become tense or upset and postponed my chiropractic session until after arranging to fix my crashed website. But, somehow, through all of this I stayed calm, and I felt that the synchronicity of talking to Adriene who has her own website using the identical WordPress 3.1 platform that runs SillySutras.com was a sign from the Universe that I was in the right place at the right time. Moreover, after my wonderful walk beside the Bay I was feeling especially happy and peaceful.
So in that happy state, I stretched out on the chiropractic table, stilled my mind, and began deep relaxed breathing. Then, while lying prone on the chiropractor’s table with a ‘blanked-out’ mind, I suddenly saw the day’s ‘blanked-out’ website incident as a ‘cosmic joke’, testing whether Ron would witness it non-reactively and respond peacefully and appropriately – or whether he’d react reflexively, emotionally and impulsively. Thereupon, with that realization, I went into a state of bliss and was laughing continuously – sometimes singing – for half an hour.
Over thirty years ago, while driving home to San Francisco from a retreat with my beloved Guru, Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, I was suddenly taken out of my body and into a very subtle higher spiritual realm from which this world appeared as a mere play of consciousness – a sort of cosmic joke – where every appearance and happening was causally pre-determined by Cosmic Consciousness.
Though that experience was life-changing and unforgettable, it is difficult for me to remember it in daily life, especially when viewing with compassion, and sometimes with tears, the disharmony and terrible suffering of Humankind and other life in this crazy world. But on the Soul Works chiropractic table with a blanked-out mind, I remembered the ‘cosmic joke’ blissfully, and laughed continuously.
Emerging from Soul Works, I realized that it was infinitely more important for Ron to access his inner bliss with a ‘blanked-out’ mind, than his Silly Sutra writings on a ‘blanked-out’ website. So Monday’s website emergency proved a disguised blessing, affording Ron an opportunity to witness his website crash dispassionately and non-reactively, and to learn from that experience.
Moral of the story: Every adverse experience may be a disguised blessing – an opportunity to learn something important. And sychronicities seen during such experiences can be signs that we are “in the flow” at the right time and place, despite apparent problems. viz. “When events seeming random, happen in tandem, it’s then we know we’re in the flow.”
Life on earth has its unavoidable ‘ups and downs’ – its inevitable difficulties. So learning to experience life’s adversities skillfully and with equanimity helps us live happier lives and furthers our evolution.
Here is a previously posted silly sutras poem which encapsulates the inevitability of life’s ‘ups and downs’:
In duality domain
ev’ry pleasure’s
wrapped in pain.
Within each joy
is an oy/oy/oy.
So, when you’re feeling forlorn,
remember this:
Misery is the mother of Bliss.
PS. If you are reading this posting on SillySutras.com, you know that it is no longer blanked-out, and that Ron’s editing mistake was completely corrected after he enjoyed a few blissed out hours with a blanked-out mind. Hurray!
On returning home from Soul Works I found an email from Lana Walker, my professional website advisor. I immediately replied telling her of the website white-out problem, which she quickly fixed a few hours after it began. And more people accessed the website that Monday, than any other day that week.
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are essentially conscious of yourself.’
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi”
“Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
“You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6
“Your own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
Essence Of Advaita
E = mc2 = Consciousness
Subject = Object = Consciousness
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Sri Ramana Maharshi
You are not what you think you are:
You are not a person, or a personality.
You are not a body, or a nobody.
You are not your mind, or your thoughts. You are infinite Eternal Awareness.
You are the screen, not the movie.
You are Rama, not the drama.
You are the glory, not the story. You are the Whole, not your role. So, wake up, and –
Transcend entity identity!
* Advaita means non-dualism: it is
the oldest extant school of Indian Philosophy
Ron’s audio recitation of Advaita-Vedanta For Dummies
“When the student is ready, the master appears.”
~ Buddhist Proverb
Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
When something or someone wonderful happens in our lives many of us feel grateful and lucky, especially if our good fortune happens seemingly by chance.
Can you recall times or incidents when you felt really lucky? Have you ever thought that something or someone in your life was a wonderful blessing? Have you ever considered yourself lucky to be alive? Blessed to be living during important times?
I want to share with you a story about the luckiest day and biggest blessing of my life – a blessing which I couldn’t understand when it happened and can’t yet fully appreciate. Because of what happened that day, I am happier than ever before, enjoying a wonderful life on our precious planet and able to share with others ever more love, happiness and gratitude.
Paradoxically, this biggest blessing of my life followed my most painful experience, and has helped me realize that even my life’s most difficult experiences have been disguised blessings, which have helped me to open and to evolve spiritually.
In 1976, during a psychologically traumatic divorce separating me from my young children, I experienced an extraordinary and dramatic rebirth experience opening me to the spiritual dimensions of life.
Before the divorce, my most memorable spiritual experiences had happened in hospital delivery rooms when, in my presence, my former wife Naomi gave birth to our children, Jessica and Joshua.
But beginning with my dramatic rebirth experience and spiritual opening, I gradually have learned that each birth – and every other appearance and experience in this world – originates with unseen energies arising in Infinite Awareness; that our true essence and identity is eternal spirit, beyond form – beyond birth and death; and thus, that spirituality, consciousness and mind, are of immeasurably preeminent importance to us as genesis of all physical or material appearances.
I couldn’t have experienced these blessings but for what happened on the luckiest day of my life – April 15, 1978 – two years after my spiritual rebirth experience.
On that day I received a spiritual initiation from an extraordinary Holy man – venerable Hindu guru Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas (Guruji).* Until meeting Guruji, I knew very little about Gurus or their teachings and had no intention of becoming involved with a spiritual teacher. Nor did I have any idea of how a rare and authentic Guru could help me both in this world and from subtle planes – like an incarnate ‘guardian angel’. So, I couldn’t begin to imagine how fortunate I was.
Before meeting Guruji, I didn’t understand the karmic law that we reap as we sow. But since then I have learned that in this world nothing – however mysterious – escapes the law of cause and effect. So I now intuit that the biggest blessing of my life did not happen by chance; but, that it was my destiny to meet Guruji as my spiritual master and that I was led to him through synchronicity.
Before meeting Guruji, I wasn’t familiar with Indian culture or religion. But I began to have synchronistic experiences which seemed associated with India.
First, Mahatma Gandhi surprisingly and vividly appeared to me as an inner spiritual guide advising me at various times in response to my questions to him, even though I then knew little about him and hadn’t invoked him. (Much later I learned that Gandhi had been a lawyer, and that from childhood his principal spiritual practice was constant repetition of the name “Rama” – an Indian name for God which was his last utterance on his assassination in 1948.)
Soon thereafter, in Hawaii while lost in a jungle-like nature preserve and frightened, I spontaneously and inexplicably began calling and repeating “Rama” – a name for God which I’d never before recited in this life, found my way out of the jungle tangle, and immediately thereafter began seeing my own aura, and afterwards auras of others.
Later, in San Francisco, I was suddenly awakened from deep sleep one night to behold (sitting up with eyes wide open) an extraordinarily vivid vision of a golden Indian Divine Mother which morphed into a golden image of myself.
Thereafter, at night before retiring, I began seeing blurred inner visions of an elderly Indian man with a beard, though I had not yet begun meditating regularly.
Apart from these “inner” experiences there was a series of “outer” synchronicities that led me to Guruji.
Attempting to scientifically understand what was happening to me after my spiritual re-birth experience, I found and read with tremendous interest and fascination a medical case study book by Lee Sannella, MD, entitled: “Kundalini-Psychosis or Transcendence” about an esoteric psychophysiological transformation process long known to Indian yogis and adepts but not to Western medicine; a process initiated by awakening of dormant ‘kundalini’ energy at the base of the spine.
The book defined the kundalini process as an “evolutionary process taking place in the human nervous system”. As I read therein medical case studies of fifteen different people undergoing the kundalini process, I realized that I too had been experiencing that process since my April 1976 spontaneous rebirth episode; and, that the kundalini process might explain some of my ‘weird’ new experiences.
Thereupon, I wanted to meet Dr. Sannella, who practiced in the Bay Area as both a psychiatrist and ophthalmologist. On learning that he was a principal officer of the California Society For Psychical Study, I joined the society and began attending its bi-monthly meetings, where I met him.
One evening in early April 1978, I attended a regular meeting of the Society. As I entered the meeting room, I saw a poster announcing a forthcoming series of meditation programs at the University Christian Church in Berkeley. The poster featured a prominent picture of an elderly man with a gray beard. As the meeting progressed, I irresistibly kept looking at the poster. Something about the picture of the old man fascinated me.
After the formal meeting concluded, I asked Dr. Sannella about the pictured meditation teacher and his announced meditation programs. Dr. Sannella told me that this would be an exceptional opportunity for “darshan” of an Indian master yogi, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, with rare power to activate and guide the Kundalini transformation process, which when activated could accelerate spiritual evolution but cause problems without such guidance. (I later learned that Dr. Sannella had received an initiation from this master yogi.)
I took a printed flyer with details of the schedule and decided to attend the first of the announced meditation programs. A crucially important new life phase was about to begin.
The meditation programs proved unlike anything I had anticipated or ever before experienced. At the front of the room was a pleasant, bright-eyed elderly man with a beard, wearing a white robe, and accompanied by an interpreter. Unknown to me, this small elderly gentleman was then about 100 years old, and had attained an exceptionally advanced state of spiritual evolution with unbelievable mystical powers which were largely esoteric in the West and clearly beyond the comprehension of Western science.
I soon began experiencing some of those extraordinary powers, and began perceiving him differently than anyone else I’d ever yet met.
In the interpreter’s introductory remarks we were informed that Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas was empowered to awaken dormant kundalini energy via thought, gaze, sound or touch; that in the ensuing meditation program we were to be given an experience of communication of this energy via the sound of sacred Sanskrit mantras, which he would sing. We were instructed to sit with closed eyes, watch our breath, and listen to the mantras.
Listening to Dhyanyogi sing Sanskrit mantras was for me reminiscent of hearing Jewish cantors singing Hebrew prayers and chants. But I had never before felt such intense subtle energy. Nor had I ever before perceived someone with a luminous silvery aura like his. After the singing, audience questions were entertained and answered via interpreter. On conclusion of the program, I decided to – and did – attend the next night’s program. It was similar to the first, and I experienced it similarly. And so I decided to attend the final program.
At the last program I experienced Dhyanyogi’s exceptional spiritual energy more intensely than ever before, and felt somehow changed by it in an ineffable way. That program ended with an announcement that on Sunday morning Dhyanyogi would be conferring a shaktipat initiation on anyone requesting it, after they made appropriate arrangements. It was explained that this shaktipat initiation would entail his formal transfer to each initiate of Divine shakti energy via touch and otherwise.
Still an uptight lawyer, I felt quite reluctant to participate in an esoteric initiation involving unknown formal commitments to an Indian guru with whom I was barely familiar. So I didn’t sign up for the shaktipat initiation, but retained the contact information for shaktipat participants. I returned to my San Francisco studio apartment still experiencing the intense subtle energies which had been transmitted that night, and feeling quite strange – like I’d never before felt.
Within a few minutes after entering my apartment, I spontaneously began extraordinarily intense crying and sobbing, as had first happened during my 1976 rebirth experience. Then, with closed eyes I beheld amazing inner visions. First I saw a small bright blue circle. Gradually, the vivid circle grew larger and larger. Then, within the circle, with the clarity of a good color TV image, I beheld Dhyanyogi, who had come for an inner visit knowing I was in a receptive state of consciousness after meditating with him in Berkeley.
I had learned from my inner experience with Gandhi, that disembodied spirits could intentionally manifest to me while I was in an ‘alpha state of consciousness’. But this was my first such experience with an incarnate being. And thereupon I suddenly realized that, long before I met or heard about him, it was Guruji who had frequently appeared to me as the blurred inner image of an elderly man with a beard.
This experience and realization changed my mind about taking the shaktipat initiation. I thought “this yogi is someone very special, who I must learn more about.” So, the next day I phoned and made arrangements to participate in the esoteric initiation ceremony.
During the ceremony I was given a sacred mantra to repeat as a primary spiritual practice. Like Gandhi’s mantra and the mantra I had first spontaneously repeated in Hawaii, it was a Rama mantra. Also, I was given a Sanskrit spiritual name: “Rasik”. Before leaving the ceremony I asked Guruji’s assistant for the meaning of “Rasik”, and was quite surprised and puzzled when he replied “one engrossed in devotion”. He wrote this new spiritual name and its meaning on the cover of a small meditation instruction pamphlet which I had received after the initiation ceremony. “Why has a secular lawyer like me being given a name like this?”, I wondered. The answer to that question gradually became quite evident.
After meeting Guruji in 1978, I was fortunate to see and be with him on various occasions during his remaining time in the US – mostly in group retreats and meditations. In his holy presence, I was invariably moved to intense devotional tears. And more and more Guruji’s saintly simplicity, compassion, love, and humility captured my heart.
And as he presciently foresaw in bestowing the name “Rasik”, I became and have ever since remained “engrossed in devotion”, intensely yearning for the Divine, and often spontaneously calling and weeping for “Rama” with deep emotion of devotion.
In December, 1979, Guruji was interviewed for a “New Dimensions” radio broadcast, which is linked below. I was lucky enough to have been present then and to have briefly participated in that interview, explaining how I became Guruji’s disciple.
During the interview, Guruji told how he had come to the United States in 1976, to find and help American devotees many of whom he had previously seen during a near death visit with Lord Rama, the aspect of universal Divinity most emphasized in Guruji’s devotional practices.
Further he explained the importance of meditation and “shaktipat” and how his kundalini yoga path was not a religion but a spiritual practice and science bringing lasting inner peace and happiness to individuals of any belief or religious affiliation. He concluded the interview by chanting mantras with which he subtly transmitted his exceptional spiritual energies.
[To listen to interview click here]
In addition to emanating an amazingly intense shakti energy field, Guruji displayed extraordinary physical prowess. I saw him as a centenarian demonstrating difficult yogic postures – like head stands – and walking so fast on a beach that young people had to jog to keep up with his extraordinary pace.
But, after four years of tireless efforts in the US, Guruji became extremely debilitated and in 1980 was obliged to return to India. My apartment in San Francisco, was the last place in the US where he stayed for a few weeks. During that period I was blessed not only with his holy presence but with rare opportunities to speak with him directly.
On one of those memorable occasions, I effusively and spontaneously exclaimed to him: “Guruji, the day I met you was the luckiest day of my life!” After a pregnant pause, his unforgettable reply was: “That’s true.”
More than thirty years have now passed since I received shaktipat initiation. But the kundalini evolutionary process which Guruji initiated still continues. Thanks to Guruji’s subtle guidance, it seems irresistibly to be removing my egoic limitations, so that there is today (self-identified with this life-form) much less “Ron” and much more “Ram” than there was on April 15, 1978. Like ‘magical’ spiritual alchemy, the kundalini shakti is transmuting and transforming Ron’s humanity to Divinity.
At age 102, Guruji returned to India where he spent his fourteen remaining years until leaving his physical body at age 116. Nonetheless since then, with tears of deep devotion and gratitude, I have continued to experience (at subtle levels of awareness) his profoundly transformative shakti energy.
Thus, from the depths of my heart, I still feel that the day I met Guruji was the luckiest day of my life.
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“If there is love in your heart, you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“. . Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Religion is confining and imprisoning and toxic because it is based on ideology and dogma. But spirituality is redeeming and universal.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion.”
~ Kahlil Gibran~ “The Prophet”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Love said to me,
there is nothing that is not me.
Be silent.”
~ Rumi
The Devil was taking his principal disciple on a world teaching tour. They reached a remote place in the Indian Himalayas, when together they observed an extraordinary event.
Suddenly, a yogi in deep meditation emanated an enormous aura of amazing white light. Seeing this, the Devil danced with glee.
His puzzled disciple inquired: “Master what has happened?”
The Devil responded: “He has realized the Eternal Truth and become enlightened.” “Then why are you so gleeful?” asked the bewildered disciple.
“Because he will attract many followers, and we are going to organize them”, explained the Devil.
Moral of the story:
Spiritual Truth cannot be organized, it must be experienced.
Words cannot communicate inner realizations of “enlightened” sages – they only may point the Way, like maps.
Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Mohamed, Lao Tzu, Rumi and other sages and prophets, realized ONE inexpressible Universal Intelligence or Truth, which must be experienced to be Known.
But, paradoxically, ‘religious’ institutions organized to teach universal “Truth” realized by Great Beings often perpetuate false ego ideas of separateness, which the sages transcended.
Thus, throughout human history countless people and other precious life forms – all manifestations of that same Universal Intelligence – have been victims of wars, crusades, inquisitions and persecutions initiated in the name of “true” religion or God.
Now let us realize, at long last, that in Essence we are not separate;
that we are all manifestations of the same Divine Spirit or Self –
which is LOVE!
So, together, let us live Life as LOVE!
AND SO IT SHALL BE!
“We are born and reborn countless number of times, and it is possible that each being has been our parent at one time or another. Therefore, it is likely that all beings in this universe have familial connections.”
~ H. H. Dalai Lama, from ‘The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”
“For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
~ Matthew 12:50
In this wonderful world of relativity,
We are all relatives.
We are all connected and kin,
With our precious planet,
and all Life therein.
We all belong here,
as we all long here –
For everlasting LOVE.
So as ONE earth-life family,
let us live our lives with LOVE
As the Kin-dom of Heaven,
Blessed on Earth, as it is Above.
“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion,
and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
As ego goes, consciousness grows, until it Knows – Itself.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Maitreya - The Next Buddha
Einstein revolutionized Western science with his groundbreaking theory of relativity establishing equivalence between all matter and energy in the universe, quantifiable by the simple equation e = mc2.
Since then, for over a century, Western science has more and more shown what ancient shamans, seers, and indigenous societies for millennia have known:
that there is a cosmic web of life connecting everything and everyone in Nature from the greatest galaxies to the tiniest sub-atomic particles; that we are each an integral inter-connected part of Nature’s web of life – not separate from it; that as Einstein observed: “Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
Though Einstein’s insights revolutionized physicists’ view of space/time “reality”, we haven’t yet changed our way of thinking about such “reality”. Until now, most of Humanity has mistakenly kept behaving as if we are separated from each other and from Nature, and not part of it. This behavior has resulted in continuing selfishness, cruelty, wars and unsustainable and disharmonious exploitation of our precious planet.
But gradually we are awakening. From seeing everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries, we are more and more realizing that everyone and everything is connected by our common essence: ever-changing energy in a matrix of immutable awareness.
All of our selfish, disharmonious and unsustainable behavior has arisen from a single root cause: egoic ignorance of our true nature. Thus, the ancient Vedic seers told us in the Rig Veda that “ Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.”
What is ego? Ego is our mistaken self-identification with the visual illusion of physical separation from each other, from Nature – from Self – from the Universe – from Divinity.
Only rare Buddha-like beings, are said to totally transcend ego identification. So we all experience some degree of separate self-identification. But all humans are in various stages of an ultimately irresistible evolutionary process of ego attrition and transcendence.
In this world of cause and effect, Nature – not ego – is in charge and determines everything. But, while believing ourselves separate from Nature, we exercise apparent free will and seemingly make non-predestined choices.
Depending on whether we are in harmony or dis-harmony with Nature, these apparent choices hasten or impede our evolution, create or mitigate crises, sufferings and problems. So, let us ever aspire to make choices which are harmonious with Nature:
Ever mindful of our connection with all Life on our precious planet,
let us choose to act with loving-kindness and compassion for everyone.
Ever mindful that Nature is our nature,
let us see and cherish Nature in everything and everyone.
Ever mindful that Nature is the ultimate Doer,
more and more let us choose to let go of ego,
and to let Life live us as LOVE.
And So It Shall Be!
“The essence of all wisdom is to know the answers to ‘who am I?’
and ‘what will become of me?’ on the Day of Judgment.”
~ Jalaluddin Rumi
“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Know thyself – The unexamined life is not worth living.”
~ Socrates
“Give up all questions except one: “Who am I?” After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The “I am” is certain. The “I am this” is not.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Ask and it shall be given; Seek and ye shall find.”
~ Matthew 7:7
“Who am I?
The quest is in the question. The question is the answer.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“An ‘identity crisis’ can be life’s greatest opportunity,
because it raises life’s most crucial question – “Who am I?”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman — that thou art.”
~ Shankaracharya
“What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“So the question Who am I? is not an idle one. How you answer the question will determine how you live the rest of your life. It will determine the quality of your life.”
~ Neale Donald Walsch
Have you ever deeply wondered about your true self-identity or urgently asked yourself, “Who Am I”?
Most of us, never inquire about our true self-identity, but we assume ourselves to be mere mortal physical life-forms with unique histories, separate from everyone and everything else.
Not until age forty two, did I ever ask myself or wonder “Who Am I”? Until then, I assumed that I was only my physical body, its thoughts and its story; that I was a middle-aged secular Jewish litigation lawyer, married, with two kids, born in Chicago and living in San Francisco.
But on New Year’s Eve 1974-5, these assumptions were severely shaken. At a ‘pot luck’ dinner party, after unwittingly eating a large piece of cake laced with marijuana, I had a dramatically unforgettable out of body experience.
From a bedroom ceiling, I saw my body lying face down on a pillow, and saw each of my thoughts originating outside the body as a vividly colored kaleidoscopic form.
These perceptions seemed very real – not dreamlike or hallucinatory. And they irresistibly raised for me an urgent new question: “Who or what am I?”
I reasoned that if I was on the ceiling of the room, while my body was face-down on the bed, I couldn’t be the body; and that if I was on the ceiling of the room, while my thoughts were appearing below me, I couldn’t be the thoughts. And if not my body and not my thoughts, “Who or what am I?”
Thereafter, irresistibly and persistently I began pursuing this previously unexamined enquiry, with intense longing for an answer. This process has proved an enormous blessing which has changed my life forever. It has convinced me that “Who Am I?” is the most important question that anyone can ever ask; that by deeply reflecting on our true self-identity and persistently inquiring: “Who Am I?” we can ultimately experience a profound, life-enhancing psychological transformation process.
Throughout history saints and sages of every tradition and culture – East and West – have counseled us to “Know thyself.” In the West, this fundamental injunction was attributed to the Greek oracle consulted by Socrates and carved into the Temple of Apollo as: “Gnothi Seauton”.
Eastern saints and mystics for millennia have taught that there is an ultimate goal of life – an ‘enlightened’ state of spiritual awareness bringing permanent happiness and freedom from all worldly bondage. Swami Yogananda Paramahansa, who brought Eastern wisdom to the West in the 20th century, called this spiritual goal “self-realization”.
Who is this “Self” that we are counseled to know or realize? How can we follow the advice of the saints and sages to “Know thyself”, and so experience “self-realization”?
One of the principal methods to “Know thyself” suggested by mystics and sages is to inquire: “Who am I?” For example, ancient Indian sage Shankara said that spiritual “Knowledge cannot spring up by any other means than the inquiry: Who am I?”.
In Hinduism, such self-inquiry is chiefly associated with Advaita-Vedanta, the oldest extant school of Indian Philosophy. Advaita means non-dualism and its teachings are essentially the same as those of Mahayana Buddhism. Both are aimed at experiencing non-dual Reality.
The ultimate answer to the question “Who Am I?” cannot come from intellect. We can know or realize our “self” only by intuitive experience of “Who Am I?”. However, in the Hindu and Buddhist non-duality paths, powers of discrimination are used to transcend intellect and to reveal the Self via self-realization.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Ask and it shall be given; Seek and ye shall find.” Thus, if we persistently ask “Who Am I?”, the answer shall be given. And in seeking our true Self, we shall find our true Self – as Eternal Peace beyond understanding, and as timeless Joy beyond suffering.
And so it shall be!
“Every feature of the Porziuncola lifts the heart and mind to God”
~ St. Padre Pio
“The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna
Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.
~ Francis of Assisi
“The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today”
~ Francis Of Assisi
Remember with gratitude,
Life is beatitude –
Even its sorrows and pain;
For we’re all in God’s Grace,
Every time, every place, and
Forever (S)HE will reign!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Saint Francis of Assisi by Lea Bradovich
When I moved from Chicago to San Francisco in 1960, I was largely uninformed about religions other than Judaism, and knew virtually nothing about saints. Even though Saint Francis of Assisi was patron saint of my new home, I remained ignorant of his life story until after my profound spiritual opening in 1976.
Then, through a series of synchronistic inner visions and outer events I developed a deep inner rapport with Saint Francis. And his prayer became – and remains – an important part of my daily spiritual practice.
On retirement from law practice in 1992, I made pilgrimages to India and Italy to pay my respects both to my spiritual master Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas and to Saint Francis.
On arriving in Italy in Springtime 1992, I rented a car at the Rome airport and drove northward to the Umbrian town of Assisi, where Francis was born and resided for most of his extraordinary life. As I arrived at the outskirts of Assisi, I immediately experienced a remarkable feeling of déjà vu, and was so overcome with emotion that I had to pull over to the side of the road as I began crying deeply and intensely for a long time.
My subsequent stay in Assisi and excursion to Mount La Verna in Tuscany – where Francis became the first saint to receive the crucifixion stigmata of Christ – proved magical, with unforgettable spiritual experiences.
One of the most profound of those experiences happened as I visited a tiny frescoed chapel called Porziuncola ["the little portion"]. It had been restored from a ruined condition by Francis and his early followers to become first home of the Franciscan order. Here, Francesco lived, wrote his rule, created his order of friars minor and consecrated his friend Clara (Chiara), who became Santa Clara, founder of an order dedicated to Franciscan ideals of holiness and poverty. Francis so loved this little place that he chose to die there.
As I entered the Porziuncola at Assisi, I experienced a palpable aura of love and was overcome with emotion, cried deeply and intensely and lost track of time. Ever since then, a memory of that exquisitely simple little chapel and its aura of supernal Love has remained enshrined in my heart. Although I have never since returned that holy Assisi place, which Saint Francis named and loved, my cherished memory of the Porziuncola was recently revived following a surprising and synchronistic ‘holy encounter’ in San Francisco. Here’s what happened.
Since retirement many years ago, it has been my practice to walk almost daily along San Francisco Bay. Most often I walk to the Bay following pedestrian paths beside the Fort Mason Great Meadow, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), our nation’s newest National Park.
Recently, as I arrived at Fort Mason on a beautiful and sunny June morning, I was obliged to detour from my usual path to the Bay. The National Park Service had closed the pedestrian paths around the Great Meadow for repaving. So to reach the Bay I had to walk across the grassy meadow. There I saw a very unusual sight. Perhaps hundreds of children, attended by mostly senior adults, many dressed in white, were gathered in the meadow. Many tents were set up for children’s activities, such as face painting and fortune telling. ‘Sweet music was playing on loud speakers.
I was quite impressed by this charming scene, of sweet children and caring adults, and I sensed an especially loving atmosphere pervading the meadow. Curious, I asked the first chaperone I encountered, “what’s happening?”. A lovely senior lady told me that this was a children’s fair sponsored by the Meher School of Lafayette (a San Francisco suburb) for its students and for children from less affluent San Francisco neighborhoods, who had also been invited.
Inspired by the love I perceived and felt there, I continued walking through the meadow and toward the Bay. After hiking out to the end of San Francisco Municipal Pier, I began returning home. Soon, I noticed an unopened bottle of spring water apparently dropped by a cyclist. I picked up the water bottle, determined to give it to someone at the children’s festival in the Great Meadow.
As I arrived again at the meadow, I was met by a tall friendly (and thirsty) man named Peter, who seemed to be watching out at the perimeter of the children’s gathering. Though we’d never met, he somehow seemed familiar. In greeting me Peter asked, “would you like to know what’s happening?” After I recounted what I already knew about the festival and gladly gave Peter the bottle of spring water, he told me more details of this event.
Peter explained that this gathering was like a mini-Umbrian children’s festival inspired by universal values of Saint Francis of Assisi which are similar to those of the Meher School; and, that periodically the school sponsors a play about the life of Francis performed at various venues, including at The National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi, located in San Francisco’s oldest church in the North Beach district.
I was very surprised when Peter mentioned a national shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi located in San Francisco. Though I’ve lived in San Francisco more than fifty years, I don’t remember ever before hearing about such a national shrine. Moreover as Peter described the shrine, I was amazed to learn that it included an almost exact replica of the Porziuncola at Assisi, recently constructed at the instance of former San Francisco supervisor Angela Alioto.
Peter and I then exchanged stories about our respective springtime visits to Assisi and our heartfelt affinity with Saint Francis. On parting we shared contact information.
A few days later, I received an email invitation from from Peter’s friend and colleague, Terry, to tour the San Francisco Porziuncola shrine, which I quickly accepted. Terry, is both music director of the Meher School’s sponsoring non-profit organization, Sufism Reoriented, and a member of the Knights of St. Francis, a volunteer organization which helps safeguard the national shrine.
The tour proved magical for me. With Terry and Peter as guides, I beheld for the first time the San Francisco “Porziuncola Nuova”. Before entering, I noticed carved in Italian on the second marble step a quote from Francesco: “Vi voglio tutti in Paradiso” [“I want you ALL in Paradise”]. On learning what those words meant, I experienced instant heart-felt emotion and tears.
As I entered the sanctuary that emotion deepened, and soon overcome by it I was obliged to sit silently in a pew, just as I did in Assisi. And, as in Assisi, profuse tears flowed. Unable to talk, I sat and cried for a while as Peter compassionately attempted to comfort me. In the San Francisco Porziuncola I didn’t lose track of time as I did in Assisi, and after crying for a while resumed conversation with Terry and Peter.
But I continued feeling so emotional in that sacred space that I was unable to focus on details of the beautiful pictorial art and artifacts around me, which I will observe on another visit.
I did however notice a prominently displayed letter Tau, the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet which in biblical times closely resembled the letter T. [See below.] The Tau was adopted by Francesco as his own symbol or logo which he painted on the walls and doors of places where he stayed, and used in his writings as his only signature. (Synchronistically, I had a few days earlier been discussing with a friend possible use of a Tau as a logo for a new non-profit corporation I am forming.)
Before exiting the “Porziuncola Nuova” I gazed upon and gently touched one of the holiest Franciscan relics in the world, a beautifully displayed rock believed to have been used by Francis as a crude tool in his reconstruction of the Porziuncola.
After departing the shrine, Terry and Peter and I adjourned for lunch in a nearby restaurant, where we shared stories of how Divine Grace has continuously blessed our lives, as it did on that magical day.
And in now reflecting on that wonderful day of rediscovery, I realize that it couldn’t have happened but for my synchronistic detours through the grassy Great Meadow and desire to share a bottle of spring water which I happened to find while walking by the Bay.
It seems that Divine Grace often works through syncronicity, and that the more alert we become to such synchronicity the more it happens. What do you think?
“And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles.”
~ Walt Whitman
“Synchronicity is choreographed by a great, pervasive intelligence that lies at the heart of nature, and is manifest in each of us through what we call the soul.”
~ Deepak Chopra, Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
Before January 1, 2000, [the year “Y2K”] there was much societal fear in technically advanced countries about a possible planetary systemic break-down of crucial infrastructure institutions because of computer software bugs which would not facilitate or permit automatic transition to the new year and the new twenty first century.
As Y2K approached, I was then in a period semi-solitude with no computer, TV, or daily paper. So, I was largely insulated from exposure to mass media hysteria.
But, in conversations with friends, I learned enough about the technical facts to become a bit concerned. And, in case dire predictions of systemic failures proved prescient, my conservative lawyer attitude suggested that prudence required me to keep some cash at home.
So as our transition to the twenty first century became ever more imminent, I was thinking about withdrawing some cash from my neighborhood bank. But that trip to the bank proved unnecessary.
Here’s what happened:
One sunny afternoon, after praying and meditating that morning, I began my daily walk by the water in an elevated state of consciousness. As I was walking on a path beside the Bay toward Crissy Field beach, I noticed a small brown paper bag on the sidewalk near a waste disposal container. After walking just past the bag, I intuited that I should pick it up and put it into the trash receptacle. So I turned around, and picked it up.
Feeling something in the bag, I opened it before trashing it. To my amazement, I found ten new one hundred dollar bills in a small envelope, without any identification of the person who had put them there. They became my Y2K stash of cash.
Thus, the universe had provided my Y2K stash of cash with an amazing synchronistic “manifestation miracle”. *[see footnote]
Thereafter, despite dire warnings, the new century dawned without great technological turmoil, and the stash of cash proved unnecessary. But it’s amazing synchronistic appearance had enhanced my ever abiding faith in the benevolence of the universe. If you had asked me (as Einstein allegedly asked) “Is the universe friendly”, my emphatic answer would have been and still is, “Yes!”
So on New Year’s Day, 2000, I resolved to share my spiritual faith and optimism with others. And I wrote this poem:
MILLENNIAL OUTING
[January 1, 2000]
2000 years ago
Master Jesus counseled us
to pray in our closets alone.
But today we feel
a millennial urge
to emerge,
And to live
and share
our prayer
everywhere.
So, we’re coming out
of our spiritual closets,
Together,
to bless all life,
NOW
and evermore!
My Y2K stash of cash had quickly manifested following thoughts about it. But only after many more years had elapsed did my millennial “outing” vow ultimately come to pass. And that happened only after the universe had synchronistically re-encouraged my prior determination to emerge from semi-seclusion.
In September, 2009, I received an inspiring astrological reading from Visionary Activist astrologer, Caroline Casey, who I much appreciate. Caroline intuitively and persuasively encouraged me to emerge at long last from my spiritual closet and to share my writings with the world.
Thereupon, with this encouragement from Caroline Casey, I began arrangements and preparations for starting SillySutras.com. The website was launched on May 22, 2010, with my heartfelt gratitude for our ‘friendly’ universe, and with deep aspiration to help bless all Life everywhere therein.
And so may it be!
[*This “manifestation miracle” was exemplary of numerous other such amazing synchronistic appearances which have followed my spiritual awakening. I will be sharing some of them with you in future memoirs posts.]
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
~ Albert Einstein
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
~ King Solomon – Proverbs 23:7
“The release of atom power .. changed everything except our way of thinking
…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart.The key point is a call for a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
~ Dalai Lama (From “Humanity and Ecology”)
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
“I think with intuition. The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity.
Intuition tells a man his purpose in life. One never goes wrong following his feelings. I don’t mean emotions, I mean feelings, for feelings and intuition are one.”
~ Albert Einstein
Q. How can humankind solve its critical planetary problems?
A. By addressing them intuitively from an elevated heart level of awareness.
The critical problems now confronting humanity have arisen from an egoic mental level of human consciousness, which must be transcended for our peaceful survival on planet Earth. As Albert Einstein aptly observed: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
To solve critical human problems we must elevate our individual and collective level of consciousness, from the human mind – which is thought – to the human heart, which is intuition. And then, with “a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness” [Dalai Lama], we shall intuitively see and cooperatively solve our problems.
Only with feelings, insights and actions arising from loving kindness and compassion for all life everywhere, can humankind truly transcend and cooperatively solve its critical ecologic and economic problems.
With benevolent and focused intention, more and more we must open our hearts to our innate empathy, kindness and compassion, and thereby realize our collective connection and concern with all life everywhere.
To experience your true loving nature, please watch this beautiful Korean video, and see if it doesn’t open your heart to innate feelings of empathy for all life everywhere:
With opened hearts we can and we shall solve our critical planetary problems.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society
that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
After living alone for over thirty years, I cannot remember any recent time when I’ve felt lonely or bored. Though I very much enjoy and require regular interactions with people, animals and nature, I’m invariably happy and savor solitude whenever I am alone at home.
However, soon after my 1976 divorce there were many times when I felt quite lonely and craved adult companionship and social contact – especially on weekends when I was alone and not working.
Gradually, such feelings of loneliness faded away and finally disappeared. And I preferred being alone – while in my apartment and while regularly jogging or walking along the Bay or in nature places, like the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Moreover, with continuing spiritual practices and amazing synchronicities, more and more I experienced a subtle connection with everyone and everything, and realized that at a subtle level I was never really alone.
The last time I recall feeling rather lonely in my apartment was just after my beloved Guruji – Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas – returned to India in 1981. Until his departure, he and his entourage had been living with me for several weeks.
He was he then constantly attended by several people who also slept in my apartment. And many others came every day as helpers and visitors.
Never before or since then has my apartment been the scene of so much activity, with so many people. Never before or since then has my apartment had such a palpably powerful and magnetic spiritual ambience.
Then after Guruji’s departure, in abrupt contrast to the period of his visit, I was suddenly living all alone again without any human company, and without Guruji’s extraordinary shakti energetic presence.
So, at first, I felt somewhat lonely – especially missing Guruji’s powerful presence. But, soon thereafter, I had an amazing synchronistic experience which assuaged my loneliness feelings, and which reminded me that I’m never really alone.
Here is what happened:
One lovely weekend morning, I arose from an extended period of prayer and meditation in my living room, unknowingly in an elevated and abstracted state of awareness. It was a beautiful sunny day, without any fog obscuring my panoramic view of the Golden Gate and the Bay.
Then, looking far westward toward the Golden Gate bridge I saw glimmering in the sunlight a distant lone white sea gull gracefully flying and hovering in the wind currents.
While gazing at that delightful scene in a ‘spaced out’ state and uninhibited by my usual limiting beliefs about “reality”, I silently and spontaneously asked the sea gull:
“Oh beautiful bird, won’t you please come here and visit me?”
And almost immediately the sea gull obliged.
It banked, turned and flew from far away directly toward me until it landed and perched on the West deck railing of my apartment, just a few feet away from where I was beholding it through a floor to ceiling living room window.
The sea gull and I gazed at each other for a few moments. Then I silently asked:
“Dear sea gull, please let me feed you; please fly to that North window that opens, so I can give you some food.”
And again the bird obliged.
It flew about thirty feet from the West railing where it was perched in front of me, to a concrete ledge, just outside the only ventilation window on the North side of my living room. Then, I walked near the sea gull’s new resting place, and already having established communication, I again silently asked it:
“Now, dear sea gull, will you please wait there until I can find some food and feed you?”
And again the bird obliged. It remained on that ledge until I found some bread and seeds, opened the North window, and fed it. Finally, after eating, the bird flew away. But that didn’t end our magical new relationship.
Not only did my new sea gull friend later return for a few more feedings, but for several months it often ‘reciprocated’ my kindness by treating me to extraordinary aerobatic displays.
Just as captive dolphins or other marine mammals might constantly swim round and round in their confining pool or tank, my sea gull friend often visited me by flying round and round a large open space between the front of my twelfth floor apartment (on the north side of my high-rise apartment building) and a row of five high-rise buildings half a block away on Vallejo street.
All of these extraordinary sea gull visitations happened when I was alone in my apartment, except one. On one occasion the bird appeared when I had a visitor from out of town, my friend Steve, who like me was both a lawyer and an initiate of Guruji.
After Steve witnessed my sea gull visitor, I remembered that Guruji once told us that some advanced yogis have the ability to enter or possess bodies of other creatures, even scorpions in caves conducive to meditation. So I wondered then whether Guruji had sent that sea gull to assuage my feelings of loneliness on his departure.
But, however it happened, the sea gull experience proved a crucial blessing because it synchronistically bestowed an important evolutionary insight about how our concepts of “reality” determine and disrupt our ‘relationship’ with Nature.
My communication and communion experience with the sea gull happened because I was in an elevated and intuitive state of consciousness uninhibited by my usual limiting beliefs about “reality”, and about our apparent separation from other life-forms.
Thus, that unforgettable experience demonstrated our human potential to intuitively feel loving oneness with all of Nature. It was an unforgettable and dramatic reminder of our cosmic consciousness connection with all seemingly separate life-forms.
As Einstein observed, “Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
Throughout human history indigenous societies have intuitively revered and communed with all of Nature. In such societies, my sea gull experience might have been considered quite ‘normal’, not at all unusual or noteworthy.
But in our present technological age, most humans have lost their innate ability to be attuned and harmonious with all of Nature. So, paradoxically, it is only our species – the species which considers itself most advanced – that is causing serious natural disruptions, disharmonies and ecological crises.
Like my sea gull friend, other creatures without any conceptions about “reality” are spontaneously harmonious with Nature.
So I view my sea gull communion experience as symbolic of our ever innate human potential – and urgent ecological imperative – for returning to an elevated heart level of awareness from which spontaneously, intuitively and harmoniously we shall honor and cooperate with Nature, thus allowing all life everywhere to survive and flourish.
“That which permeates all,
which nothing transcends and which,
like the universal space around us,
fills everything completely from within and without,
that Supreme non-dual Brahman —
that thou art.”
~ Shankaracharya
Not Christian or Jew or
Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen.
Not any religion
or cultural system. I am
not from the east
or the west, not
out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not
natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all.
I do not exist,
am not an entity in this
world or the next,
did not descend from
Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is
the placeless, a trace
of the traceless.
Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved,
have seen the two
worlds as one and
that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath breathing
human being.
(Translation and video recitation by Coleman Barks, from Essential Rumi)
You were born with wings.
Why prefer to crawl through life?
~ Rumi
The world is a prison and we are the prisoners:
Dig a hole in the prison and let yourself out!
~ Rumi
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
~ Rumi
I long to escape the prison of my ego and lose myself in you.
~ Rumi
You have been a prisoner of a little pond,
I am the ocean and its turbulent flood.
Come merge with me, leave this world of ignorance.
Be with me, I will open the gate to your love.
~ Rumi
Wean Yourself
Little by little, wean yourself.
This is the gist of what I have to say.
From any embryo, whose nourishment comes from the blood,
Move to an infant drinking milk,
To a child on solid food,
To a searcher after wisdom,
To a hunter of more invisible game.
Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo,
You might say, “The world outside is vast and intricate.
There are wheat fields and mountain passes,
and orchards in bloom.
At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding.”
You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer.
There is no “other world.”
I only know what I’ve experienced.
You must be hallucinating.
Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi translated by Coleman Barks
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist and Confucian.”
~ Gandhi
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen.
Not any religion
My place is the placeless, a trace of the traceless.
Neither body or soul.”
~ Rumi
“There is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church where I kneel.
Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.
Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is illumined nothing,”
~ Rabia of Basra
I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of itself with me
that I can no longer call myself
a man, a woman, an angel
or even pure soul.
Love has befriended me so completely
It has turned to ash and freed me
of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.
-Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky in The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master
“I hold three treasures close to my heart.
The first is love;
The next simplicity;
The third, overcoming ego.”
~ Lao Tzu
“When I let go of what [I think] I am,
I become what I might be.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies. The opposite is also true. The sun of truth remains hidden behind the cloud of self-identification with the body.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
WHAT IS EGO?
Q. What is ego?
A. Ego is what you think you are –
If you don’t self-identify with Universal Awareness, Nature or Divinity.
And your body is your ego incarnate.
As you learn what you really are,
you’ll change what you think you are –
Until without thinking what you are
or who you are,
You just ARE.
Here are some helpful quotations:
“When you think or speak about yourself, when you say, “I,” what you usually refer to is “me and my story.” This is the “I” of your likes and dislikes, fears and desires, the “I” that is never satisfied for long. It is a mind-made sense of who you are, conditioned by the past and seeking to find its fulfillment in the future. Can you see that this “I” is fleeting, a temporary formation, like a wave pattern on the surface of the water?”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
“As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it …it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind. …..As long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“As long as the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease; you cannot be at peace or fulfilled except for brief intervals when you obtained what you wanted, when a craving has just been fulfilled. Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. It needs to be both defended and fed constantly. The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“Ego could be defined as whatever covers up basic goodness. From an experiential point of view, what is ego covering up? It’s covering up our experience of just being here, just fully being where we are, so that we can relate with the immediacy of our experience. Egolessness is a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world. It is unconditional well being, unconditional joy that includes all the different qualities of our experience.”
~ Pema Chodron
“The individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with Nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being. This is—rather literally—to be spellbound.
~ Alan Watts
“When the line between myself and what happens to me is dissolved and there is no stronghold left for an ego even as a passive witness, I find myself not in a world but
as a world which is neither compulsive nor capricious.”
~ Alan Watts
“The ego says that the world is vast, and that the particles which form it are tiny. When tiny particles join, it says, the vast world appears. When the vast world disperses, it says, tiny particles appear. The ego is entranced by all these names and ideas, but the subtle truth is that world and particle are the same; neither one vast, neither one tiny. Every thing is equal to every other thing. Names and concepts only block your perception of this Great Oneness. Therefore it is wise to ignore them. Those who live inside their egos are continually bewildered: they struggle frantically to know whether things are large or small, whether or not there is a purpose to joining or dispersing, whether the universe is blind and mechanical or the divine creation of a conscious being. In reality there are no grounds for having beliefs or making comments about such things. Look behind them instead, and you will discern the deep, silent, complete truth of the Tao. Embrace it, and your bewilderment vanishes.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle: Totally fascinated by the realm of the senses, it swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next, one self-centered idea to the next. If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously, you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth. Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.”
~ Lao Tzu
Q: “How much “ego” do you need? A: Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.”
~ Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness
that created it. ”
~ Albert Einstein
Except for timeless awareness, nothing is permanent ‘neath Heaven’s vast firmament. Science shows us that our world and everything in it is ever changing energy. Yet we have been spell-bound by cultural conditioning, language and perception to believe ourselves separate subjects in a solid “objective” world.
Until now, acting on the illusionary belief that we are separate from Nature, we have ignorantly, fearfully and greedily been despoiling and exploiting our precious planet and its lifeforms, thereby creating immense ecologic, economic, humanitarian and interpersonal crises.
Yet, paradoxically, though confronted with extraordinary peril, we now have unprecedented potential for solving and transcending our planetary problems, intuitively, scientifically, and technologically.
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and Humanity is achieving a critical mass of higher consciousness which will resolve our critical mess as we transcend the separate subject-object illusion, realizing that Nature is our nature; that what we do to Nature and others we do to ourselves.
The news media are now filled with reports of important new social phenomena – like Occupy Wall Street – emblematic of elevated societal awareness of crucial need for revolutionary systemic change.
Here is an excellent essay by spiritual author and teacher Owen Waters, explaining how ultimate power to transcend human problems is within each of us; and how we are now experiencing a subtle shift in human consciousness which is being led by a critical mass of spiritual seekers – sometimes called “lightworkers”. The Lightworker Objective ~ by Owen Waters*
We are in the midst of a revolution in consciousness which is affecting everyone. Even the most staunch traditionalists in society are being dragged into a vortex of ever-increasing change.
The 80-20 rule states that 80% of any change is typically caused by 20% of the people. The 20% consists of the leading thinkers of the day. In spiritual matters, these leading edge people are sometimes called lightworkers or old souls, indicating that they have learned more from their experiences through many incarnations. This advanced learning is stored as wisdom in their souls and they benefit from it consciously through intuitive inner guidance.
Today’s leading edge thinkers planned ahead to be incarnate at this time in history to help make the essential positive changes in society possible. Social science has begun to recognize them as a major group in today’s society.
A survey in the 1990’s by researchers Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson found that 26 percent of American adults had become what they termed Cultural Creatives. Over fifty million Americans now fit the definition of a newly emerging type of humanity that has made a comprehensive upward shift in worldview, values and way of life. In Europe, a 1997 survey conducted in fifteen European countries showed figures that are very similar to the United States.
So, in a social setting the term ‘leading edge thinker’ actually applies to more than 20% of the people today. Most of them don’t think of themselves as leading edge, nor do they typically realize how many other people are just like them.
The term ‘lightworker’ is synonymous with ‘spiritual seeker.’ You may or may not think of yourself a lightworker but, if you’re reading this, then you fit the definition perfectly.
The two categories of Cultural Creatives identified by Ray and Anderson fit exactly into the consciousness patterns of lower and upper fourth density. While our physical bodies are currently located in upper third density, our minds are free to soar through heart-centered fourth density and into fifth-density soul consciousness.
When a person moves from the third-density challenge of developing basic intellect into lower fourth density, their worldview expands and they become more aware of the needs of society. They take into account the local and global effects of their own actions and the actions of others that they support. Environmental, organic and peace-making concerns all come under this frequency band of consciousness.
Then, as outlined in my book, The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness, when people move from lower to upper fourth-density consciousness they pass through the gateway of the heart. This brings them into the first level of spiritual awareness and they become more concerned with inner development and enlightenment.
Leading thinkers are simply people whose normal frequency of consciousness is higher than average. The higher your frequency, the greater your awareness and the greater your ability to lead change by showing others how to resolve the challenges in life. Two very popular issues today are control issues and self-empowerment. People who were raised to feel the need to be in control are now recognizing that this was just another form of fear which has no substance in reality. Reality comes from your soul’s intuitive guidance because, at a soul level, your consciousness sees everything that you need to succeed and achieve your purpose in life.
The opposite side of the same coin is the issue of self-empowerment, which is learned by people who break free of control by others and establish their own sense of inner strength and self-dependence.
The issue of self-empowerment is being explored at a societal level as well as an individual level. Every person who begins to realize that they are being deliberately disempowered and turns off the fear-inducing news broadcasts leads the world another step towards liberty from the chains that are designed to bind people to a life of servitude. Thanks to the awakening of lightworkers and leading thinkers, the world is waking up to a whole new standard of personal power and dignity. Here is the point that I am being told to make by The Lord Protector of The Shift: Lightworkers often choose to experience major challenges in their lives, not because they need the experience, because they have mastered those challenges in previous incarnations. Instead, lightworkers choose to experience challenges because other people need leading thinkers to show them how to resolve these issues. The more the leading-edge people succeed in resolving these issues, the easier it becomes for the rest to follow.
There is a global mind atmosphere or ‘mind belt’ of human consciousness around the planet. You are subconsciously linked with the mind belt 24 hours a day. It affects you and you affect it. Your contribution to the mental and spiritual health of the world is made every second of every day.
The Lightworker Objective is to be a pioneer in the advancement of consciousness, often adopting certain challenges in order to work through them and, by doing so, creating a pattern in the mind belt to make it easier for others to follow.
If you are currently working through a major life challenge and feel as though you’re going round in circles and getting nowhere, STOP and look for the gift in that challenge.
The gift is that, by loving yourself and others more, you can rise above the challenge and become more of who you really are. Then, the experience changes from one of challenge to one of self-empowerment.
Real strength does not lie anywhere in the outside world. It lies within you. Once you find that inner power, you rise above any limitation and stand as a self-realized leading thinker in a world desperate for spiritual freedom.
——
*Owen Waters is the author of The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness, and other spiritual books and articles described at: http://www.infinitebeing.com/index.html
“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
~ Albert Einstein
Many of my silly sutras were first written on bits of paper during an extended period of solitude, when I had no computer, TV, or daily paper. My attitude then about the ‘digital revolution’ was expressed in this sutra:
INNER NET, NOT INTERNET
Ron’s going off-Line,
out-of-line, out of linearity.
While the world wants ever more information,
Ron seeks infinite inspiration:
in the Unknown, in the Mystery –
the Mystery of Divinity.
But finally, despite my reluctance to go on-line, I was obliged to get a computer after my son had significant problems requiring my legal help. Only then did I discover Albert Einstein’s wise quotations on many subjects other than theoretical physics. I was amazed to learn that Einstein had expressed many of the same ideas which were conveyed in my sutras. Thereafter, in trying to discuss those ideas with others I often used Einstein quotes, rather than sutras, since Einstein’s credibility as a “genius” is infinitely more than mine, as an unknown no-one.
A few years ago, I wanted to discuss one of these ideas with my friend “KJ” a retired medical doctor and computer ‘genius’, who I met after going on-line, and who generously has helped me learn how to use my iMac and to resolve my many inevitable digital dilemmas. So, I asked KJ “what do you think of Albert Einstein?” I expected him to acknowledge Einstein’s genius, and then anticipated quoting Einstein to him to initiate a conversation about the quotation. But his answer surprised me.
He said: “If it wasn’t for Albert Einstein, I wouldn’t be here.”
At first, I thought he was joking and asked him to explain, expecting some humorous story. Instead KJ told me how a graphologist’s analysis of Albert Einstein’s signature sychronistically began a friendship which saved the lives of KJ and his parents.
Both of KJ’s parents were European medical doctors from Czechoslovakia. In the late 1920’s, before he was born they temporarily moved to Freiburg, Germany where his father was a surgical resident. KJ’s mother was then informally studying (and practicing) handwriting analysis, then recognized and taught as a scientific discipline in Germany and other advanced European countries.
One evening, KJ’s mother attended a lecture in Freiburg by a noted handwriting analysis expert. As part of the lecture, the graphologist asked audience members to place their signatures on small bits of paper, which were collected in a container and randomly picked by him for instant anonymous analysis. In so analyzing audience member’s signatures, the expert described one of them as “a quite average person, but with a flare for one particular field”. Thereupon a little man with bushy hair got up from the rear of the room and rushed up to the lecturer, proclaiming “That is the best analysis of my personality that I have ever heard.” He was so pleased, that he spontaneously rewarded the lecturer with a one hundred mark note – which was then a significant amount of German currency.
It was Albert Einstein, who by then was well known and acclaimed world-wide as a “genius” of theoretical physics for which he had received a Nobel prize. * But it was not then generally known that in addition to physics, Einstein was quite interested in graphology. After the lecturer’s spontaneous signature readings, there ensued conversations about handwriting analysis amongst the audience members. And KJ’s mother, who had never before met Einstein, discussed with him graphology issues of mutual interest. This ‘chance’ meeting began a long friendship between Einstein and KJ’s mother, focused on their common interests and expertise in graphology. So, in the 1930’s after KJ’s parents left Freiburg and returned to Prague, his mother kept in touch with Einstein.
In Prague, KJ’s father became quite prominent and was appointed Surgeon to the President of the country. He was also a very outspoken political liberal. So, when the Nazis invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia, KJ’s father was listed by them as an “undesirable” person. And his life was thus jeopardized.
By this time (1939), Einstein had renounced his German citizenship and emigrated to the USA, residing in Princeton, NJ. Via correspondence with KJ’s mother he learned of her family’s jeopardy, and managed to obtain for them an emigration visa, permitting them to come to the USA when KJ was nine years old.
So, but for Einstein KJ wouldn’t be here. And perhaps without KJ, I wouldn’t have learned enough about computers to have digitally recorded and published on-line my silly sutras and apt Einstein quotes. And I wouldn’t have been able to share with you this synchronicity story.
According to Einstein, as quoted above, all this was pre-determined “by forces over which we have no control”. Do you agree? What do you think?
* [Einstein’s enthusiastic reaction to the graphology reading was consistent with his historical persona. Historians say that Einstein was a very humble man who remained simple and self-effacing despite the world’s immense flattery and “genius” label, using his great prestige to advocate for social justice and controversial causes, like pacifism. So he regarded himself as just an ordinary person, with certain abilities in theoretical physics.]
“Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see.”
~ Carl Jung
“There is no such thing as chance;
and what seems to us merest accident
springs from the deepest source of destiny.”
~Friedrich Schiller
“People … who believe in physics, know that
the distinction between past, present, and future
is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
~ Albert Einstein
Q. What are synchronicities?
A. Synchronicities are noteworthy “premonitions” or “coincidences” in time mysteriously arising from unexplained causes and conditions which connect events, actions and thoughts; and, which show us that in Nature, there is no time and there are no “coincidences – that everything that is, was, or will be is NOW; and, that everything is inter-connected and happens in harmony and synchrony – concurrently, not coincidentally.
Q. Why are synchronicities in time often noteworthy or meaningful?
A. Synchronicities in time are often noteworthy or meaningful because as we live in linear time they remind us of our unchanging timeless consciousness – which is our true Reality. And they can show our complicity in co-creating our ever changing world “reality”.
Time is how human mind tries to measure the immeasurable NOW.
As Einstein observed:
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think.”
Space and time are but convenient conceptions of thought.
Though convenient, time is not congruent with Nature’s way –
the timeless Tao.
As thought, time is always then, not NOW; so living in time is living in the past.
As we transcend living conceptually in past time, and begin living authentically in timeless Presence, we notice more and more “synchronicities”.
And the more frequently we see synchronicities, the more they show we’re in the Flow – the Tao; the Eternal NOW.
So, when events seeming random happen in tandem,
it’s then we’ll know we’re in the flow –
the Tao; the Eternal NOW.
Thus, because humankind almost always live in time, synchronistic signs of timeless Reality often seem so noteworthy or meaningful.
Q. How do synchronicities appear in our lives?
A. Synchronicities originate in now hidden depths of mind – at transpersonal and seemingly ‘chaotic’ quantum levels of existence. The more we intuitively entrain with those higher levels of consciousness, the more we are in harmony with the natural order, and the more we see synchronicities manifesting in our lives.
We live in an ever changing participatory vibratory relative “reality” wherein creation is vibration and oscillation, and where we are creative oscillating, vibrating vortices – interconnected and interdependent with all of Nature.
Thus, everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way.
Synchronicities are resonant exteriorations or manifestations of our subtle higher vibrations – our thoughts, intentions and emanations. The higher, subtler and more focused our vibratory frequencies, the more luminous our emanations. And as we become more luminous, our synchronicities become more numerous and more numinous.
Q. How shall we interpret synchronicities?
A. Synchronicities, like dreams, can be meaningful metaphoric messages that help guide us from deep levels of consciousness; and they can present us with evolutionary opportunities, if we recognize and act on them. Even the Dalai Lama has said: “I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.”
Synchronicities also can be seen as positive “biofeedback’ signs that we are in harmony with the natural order.
Synchronicities reveal the harmonious ONENESS of the Universe – both manifest and unmanifest, implicate and explicate. And the more we see that ONENESS, the more we see synchronicity as normality.
Thus, synchronicities can be seen as significant signs and reminders that temporal linearity is a cosmic irregularity, that “reality” isn’t mechanistic, and that the universe doesn’t work as we’ve thought or been taught.
And so, synchronicities can spur an inner search for a new “reality” paradigm, ultimately leading to the transformational discovery that our ever changing world “reality” isn’t really Real; that our unchanging timeless consciousness is our true Reality.
Q. How can synchronicities inspire us?
A. Synchronicities can infuse us with feelings of awe and gratitude for all miraculous and mysterious Life on this precious planet.
As we see each synchronicity as a mysterious, miraculous and numinous sign and reminder of our interdependence with all Life, we are inspired to BE – in sympathy and harmony with all Life.
Q. Can synchronicities help us harmonize with Nature?
A. Yes. To harmonize with Nature we must intuitively and reverently commune with our natural environment. Synchronicities can help us awaken from misconceived dreams of separation from Nature, so as to honor intuitive insights over mistaken or misguided mental processes.
Mistakenly thinking ourselves separate from our observations and perceptions, we try to explain them with thoughts and logical analyses. This mental process often leads to such preoccupation with details and minutia that we lose a reverent, holistic and macrocosmic view of our miraculous space/time natural environment. And we have thereby become alienated from Nature, and have ignorantly created ecological crises.
Synchronicities can remind us of the limitations of thought, and of the dangers of alienation from an intuitively participatory way of being in this world; that as thinkers, we do not and cannot understand Nature; that we are part of a participatory natural order in which everything/ everyone is interdependent; and, that everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way.
With this awareness we are spurred to harmonize with Nature.
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”
~ Albert Einstein ( N. Y. Times , March 29, 1972)
Humans are but blips
in a boundless Ocean of Infinite Awareness.
Individuated humans are limited by thoughts:
Thoughts that create the “universe”;
Thoughts that divide Awareness
as a prism divides light.
Mind is matrix; consciousness is context.
“Human consciousness” is an idea –
a thought which seems to limit boundless Awareness.
But in Reality consciousness can’t be contained.
Time and space are mere modes of thought,
as are matter, energy, and spirit.
Time is how we measure Now,
and space is for the places where we
think we are in time.
So, in space/time, human body/mind/souls
are seemingly separate and circumscribed beings.
“It is my firm conviction that human nature
is essentially compassionate and gentle.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Imagine… the world will live as one.”
~ John Lennon
“In this world of relativity,
we are all relatives.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Everything we think, do or say
changes this world in some way.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Dalai Lama
Dear Fellow Travelers on Spaceship Earth,
As together we welcome 2012,
a legendary new year,
let us resolve collectively, consciously and cooperatively
to help make this an auspicious and transformative year
for all Humankind and for all life on our precious planet.
The personal and planetary are intimately connected.
Just as dreamers ‘create’ their dreams,
together we are a ‘dream-team’,
dreaming our world into being; and,
consciously or unconsciously creating a ‘common dream’.
So, rather than just wishing that 2012 be a great year,
or passively awaiting fulfillment of promising prophesies,
let us help actualize our collective aspiration
for evolutionary transformation,
with peace on earth and goodwill to all.
A resolution can be both a wish or determination to do something,
AND an accomplishment and manifestation of that wish.
So, as a planetary family, let us NOW
resolve to resolve our pressing international and interpersonal problems –
problems that we cannot resolve alone.
To fulfill our deepest aspirations,
let us envision and see
our precious planet as we wish it to be,
and then – to manifest our vision –
let us compassionately contribute our own unique gifts
from our own unique perspectives,
in our own unique ways.
Here is a live video link of John Lennon’s singing “Imagine”,
his inspired and ever inspiring song.
May it encourage us to ever more manifest
the immense beauty and compassion of
our true inner nature and limitless potentiality,
and thereby to transcend all obstacles as –
“One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not: what is the purpose of life? From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment. Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
With winter solstice, we begin another new cycle of ever increasing sunlight. In celebrating solstice by kindling lights of Christmas, Chanukah, Deevali, Kwanza, and other festivals, we symbolically rededicate ourselves to the Source of all light.
Knowingly or unknowingly, we seek that Source in our perennial pursuit of Peace and Happiness.
As we share season’s greetings and prayers for peace and happiness, may we find inspiration, illumination, and motivation for healing our precious planet and all its life-forms in these wisdom words about happiness:
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,
the whole aim and end of human existence”
~ Aristotle
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
~ Dalai Lama
“I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness.
That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not,
whether one believes in this religion or that religion,
we all are seeking something better in life.
So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness…”
~ Dalai Lama
“True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away.
Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably.
Happiness comes from the Self and can be found in the Self only.
Find your real Self and all else will come with it.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it.
What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.
~ Ramana Maharshi
“Seek first the kingdom of heaven,
which is within.”
~ Matthew 6:33; Luke 17:20-21
“The world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self.
Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self.
Man’s search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self.
The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it,
he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.”
~ Ramana Maharshi.
“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
~ Buddha
Happiness comes when your work and words
are of benefit to yourself and others.
~ Buddha
“He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.”
“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“Find ecstasy in life;
the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
~ Emily Dickinson
“I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains.
Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun,
go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God.
Think of the beauty that again and again
discharges itself within and without you and be happy.”
~ Anne Frank
“We are formed and molded by our thoughts.
Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts
give joy when they speak or act.
Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.”
~ Buddha
“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“Happiness does not depend on how the furniture is arranged -
it depends on how I arrange my mind.”
“When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.”
“Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy,
but this is not accurate.
You make yourself unhappy.”
~ Wayne Dyer
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Joy is not in things; it is in us.”
~ Richard Wagner
“I am happy even before I have a reason.”
~ Hafiz
“The superior man is always happy.”
~ Confucius
“Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.”
~ Chuang-Tzu
“By letting it go it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try,
the world is beyond the winning.”
~ Lao Tzu
“What is the worth of a happiness for which you must strive and work?
Real happiness is spontaneous and effortless.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.”
~ William Blake
“Always be joyful. That is the only truly saintly state.”
~ Teresa of Avila
“Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service,
and have a definite object in life
outside themselves and their personal happiness”
~ Leo Tolstoy
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“Somehow not only for Christmas
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart’s possessing
Returns to make you glad.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination”
~ Mark Twain
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow,
it only saps today of its joy.”
~ Leo Buscaglia
“Some cause happiness wherever they go;
others whenever they go.”
~ Oscar Wild
May we experience ever more Peace and Happiness –
on the Solstice Holidays and Always!
May we consciously and cooperatively participate together
in co-creating an ever better world –
Happy, Harmonious and Peaceful –
as we intend and envision it to be.
