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Life Is But A Dream

“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
“The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
~ Buddha
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
“Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.”
~ Buddha: Diamond Sutra
“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




Q. “Is all that we see or seem [like] a dream within a dream?” *

A. Yes, each person’s life is like a dream story within a dream of space/time reality.

For millennia, mystics have revealed that all we see or seem is mental illusion, ‘samsara’ or ‘maya’ – like a very persistent day dream from which we can awaken, just as we awaken from nocturnal dreams. And scientists like Einstein confirm the mystics, saying e.g. that “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”; “space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”; and, that “our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”

Just as nighttime dreams are mental images arising during sleep on a ‘screen’ of formless awareness, our daytime “reality” arises from mental images projected on the same screen of formless awareness that perceives nocturnal dreams.

Both mystics and scientists say that all the forms we perceive as “reality” are impermanent – ever appearing and disappearing in timeless formless awareness; awareness which is universal and beyond time and space, beyond birth and death. That formless awareness is in the Bible called “everlasting life” [Daniel 12:1-3] and “eternal life” [e.g. John 17:1-2] And it is our Essence and Ultimate Identity.

We can realize the biblical/mystical promise of eternal life upon awakening from illusory egoic self identification as mere mortal bodies, their thoughts and their stories, and thus awakening to self identification with that timeless, formless awareness in which we perceive our lives and all we call “reality”.

AND SO IT SHALL BE!

*Edgar Allan Poe, “A Dream Within A Dream”, 1849


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We Are The Universe


“Objective reality does not exist” ….

“the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”

~ David Bohm
“Every particle of the world is a mirror.
In each atom lies the blazing light of a thousand suns.”
~  Mahmud Shabestari, Sufi Mystic, 15th century.
“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
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”

~ Albert Einstein
“Reality” isn’t REAL!

“Reality” is a holographic theater of the mind,
where we’re microcosmic macrocosm mirrors.

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings



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.

In our Essence, we and the “universe” are One.

So, we are the “universe”.



Ron’s audio recitation of We Are The Universe

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What Are Illusions?

“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
“People … who believe in physics, know that
 the distinction between past, present, and future
 is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

~ Albert Einstein
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,

that they exist in the present,

which is what there is and all there is.

~ Alan Watts



Q. What are illusions?

A. Illusions are false ideas, conceptions, or beliefs,
accumulated and aggregated in the memory bank
that we call the “mind”.

Illusions are projections from the past
which obscure or obstruct our experience of the present.

We can’t live fully in the present,
when we are living partly in the past.

Illusions are mental obscurations.
They cloud or conceal our insight into That which is Real.

But, as we clear the ‘mirror of our mind’
of old illusory ideas and paradigms of
who and what we think we are,

We can and shall become ever more present,
insightful and illuminated – about what we really are.

So let us choose to lose our illusions.

For, the less we’re illusioned
the more we’re illumined.



Ron’s audio recitation of What are illusions?

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Should We Be Seekers?

“Seek and ye shall find.”
Matthew 7:7; Luke 11.9-13
“What you seek is seeking you.”
~ Rumi
“What we are looking for is what is looking.”
- St. Francis of Assisi




Q. Should we be seekers?

A. Knowingly or unknowingly everyone’s a seeker.
Knowingly or unknowingly everyone seeks Self.

But seeking is then,
while Self is NOW.

So, to find Self,
be Self –

NOW!



Ron’s audio recitation of Should We Be Seekers?

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Death? Afterlife? Rebirth? ~ Easter Reflections on Resurrections.

“I tell you the truth,
no one can see the kingdom of God
unless he is born again.”
~ John – 3:3
“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
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, as men call him, ends what they call men
–but beauty is more now than dying’s when…
~ e. e. cummings
“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.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Eternal Life is gained by utter abandonment of one’s own life.
When God appears to His ardent lover the lover is absorbed in Him,
and not so much as a hair of the lover remains.
True lovers are as shadows, and when the sun shines in glory
the shadows vanish away.
He is a true lover to God to whom God says,
“I am thine, and thou art mine! ”
~ Rumi


The Last Supper



As countless millions reverently commemorate the rebirth and resurrection of Jesus following his physical death by crucifixion, let us contemplate the deep significance of that story.  Whether we regard it as historic or metaphoric, the story raises crucial issues about life and death – about afterlife and rebirth – and about our true identity and reality.

After birth, death of the physical body is inevitable and unavoidable. “No matter how we strive, no body leaves alive.” Uncertainty exists only about time of death, and about whether there is life after physical death.

Most mystics say that in addition to our physical body, we are enveloped by subtle astral and mental bodies, which consciously survive death of the physical body. Followers of Eastern religions accept ideas of rebirth and reincarnation much more readily than do Westerners.

A detailed and compelling description of afterlife can be found in “Autobiography of a Yogi”, by Paramahansa Yogananda,  Chapter 43 – The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar .   There Yogananda credibly recounts a long discussion with his physically deceased Guru, Sri Yukteswar, who – like Jesus – resurrected to explain to his disciple Yogananda many details of afterlife.  [You can read that extraordinarily fascinating story at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi/Chapter_43

The Dalai Lama says that:

“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.”


Many psychics say that on physical death “we” survive and enter different realms. eg. http://www.victorzammit.com/Whenwedie/whatdoeshappen.htm

But if – like snowflakes – each of us manifests as an absolutely unique physical form, what is it about us that can survive death of that unique form, and be “born and reborn”?

Responding to the question: “Is reincarnation true?”,  revered 20th century Indian sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi said:  

“Reincarnation exists only so long as there is ignorance. There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.”


But the Dalai Lama says he practices death and rebirth eight times daily. And he’s planning to return.

If you had the option of a one-way exit pass to ‘heaven’, would you volunteer to come back to this crazy world?

Whatever our ideas about death or afterlife, may we – in this life on our precious planet – realize together our common dream for a better world, where everyone everywhere is happy.

AND SO IT SHALL BE!

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What is the Universe?


“There is no reality but God,
says the completely surrendered sheik,
who is an ocean for all beings.”
~ Rumi
“Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change,
yet the essence remains the same. ….
The source is within you
And this whole world is springing up from it.”
~ Rumi
“The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze.”
~ Buddha
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
~ Albert Einstein
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
“Nothing perceivable is real. Your attachment is your bondage. You cannot control the future. There is no such thing as free will. Will is bondage. You identify yourself with your desires and become their slave.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Objective reality does not exist” …. “the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”
~ David Bohm

 


Q. What is the Universe?

A. The “Universe” is a word – an idea –
symbolizing Humankind’s perception of a space/time/causality “reality”.

But, space/time/causality
is an illusionary relative reality
of apparently separate forms and phenomena;

An ever impermanent appearance of
ONE eternally imminent Ultimate Reality.

An Ultimate Reality which is Infinite Potentiality
beyond space/time/causality;

An Ultimate Reality beyond conceptuality –
unimaginable, incomprehensible, and inexpressible;

An Ultimate Reality eternally and infinitely
appearing and disappearing
as ephemeral forms and phenomena,
from infinite space/time perspectives;

An Ultimate Reality eternally and infinitely
expressing and experiencing

ITSELF!



Ron’s audio recitation of What is the Universe?

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Beholding The Eternal Light Of Consciousness ~ Ron’s Memoirs

“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
“You are the light of the world.”
~ Matthew 5:14
Every particle of the world is a mirror.
In each atom lies the blazing light of a thousand suns.
~  Mahmud Shabestari, Sufi Mystic, 15th century.




Though I’ve always loved walking in nature, such walks rarely happened during my married years, as it was not an interest shared by my wife. But soon after our divorce, in summer 1976 I vacationed at Yosemite National Park, where for the first time I spent days hiking in the Sierra Nevada high country, while sleeping and eating at various park tent camps at differing elevations.

I arrived at Yosemite with many new questions arising from recent re-awakening and high energy experiences, and left with even more new experiences and new questions. But an amazing, unforgettable and unforeseen answer to one question – “why I am crying so much?” – was soon bestowed.

After spending my first night at Merced Lake, the lowest elevation Yosemite tent camp, the next day I hiked over ten miles and more than two thousand feet upward to one of the highest camps, Sunrise, where I arrived just before sunset. I was assigned a bunk where I deposited my backpack, and then decided to ascend to the summit of a ten thousand foot granite dome adjoining the camp.

As I climbed up I felt unusually invigorated yet tired from hours of hiking. On reaching the summit of the granite dome, it seemed as if I was on top of the world. It was the end of a glorious clear summer day in Sierra Nevada high country. Turning southward, I beheld a magnificent mountain vista of the Cathedral Range.

The extraordinary beauty of that alpine panorama at sunset seemed unworldly, and evoked for me strange feelings of déjà vu – of being in the Himalyas – and of entering ‘God’s cathedral’. Spontaneously I began sobbing and crying intensely torrential tears.

Then, completely overcome with emotion, suddenly and instinctively I threw my body to the ground and with crying eyes closed, silently importuned a momentous request. Earnestly addressing the Highest Power with utmost urgency, I implored: “Take me. Take me now. I want nothing more; there is nothing more left for me in this life!”.

Whereupon, I beheld within an unimaginably intense and ethereal effulgence, which I can only now describe as the ‘light of ten thousand suns’. Ancient Vedic scriptures have thus alluded to this inner light:

“If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One –.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, Verse 12


Until that transformative inner light revelation at Yosemite, I had been puzzled about why I had continued crying so much since the realization that I was pure Awareness – not my body, my thoughts or my story. Sadness at the divorce was not an adequate explanation for what was happening to me. But the puzzlement began resolving with that unforgettable Yosemite inner light revelation.

Before Yosemite my intense crying had begun with the realization that I was pure Awareness. And at Yosemite while suddenly and intensely crying and yearning to end my ‘imagined’ sojourn this world, I beheld the transcendental Light of that Awareness.

My tears then were not tears of sadness, but tears of intense longing to merge with that Light, and so to end the illusion of separation from it. I had beheld Divinity in that magnificent panorama of God’s cathedral, and with all my Heart intensely yearned to be eternally merged with it.

But this realization of why I was crying, raised a new mystery: “How could it be that a secular lawyer who hadn’t cried or fervently prayed during his entire adult life, was now intensely crying and praying for God?”

Ultimately, I learned that I had been graced with “the gift of tears” – a blessed spiritual path of longing and crying for the Divine associated for millennia with devotional mystics in Catholicism, Sufism, Sikhism, Hinduism and other paths. The Universe gradually provided answers to that question, and other questions about my many mystical experiences, through a series of extraordinary synchronistic happenings and experiences which were bestowed after the Yosemite experience.

Though these happenings and experiences were too numerous for me to now recall and recount, I shall share some of the most memorable ones with you.

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Tuned Out, To Turn On

“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


Once, I found an artesian well
of bubbling bliss
deep down – within;
way below what I knew
before I found it.

Like a Divine bovine udder
it had several spigots.

Spigots for tears, for laughter,
for songs, and for sutras.

It flowed from different spigots
at different no-times,
but never at no no-time.

I often drank and bathed at that well.

Then Bush* was [s]elected.
What a turn-off!
What a spigot stopper!

I was looking for a turn on –
a spigot restarter.
Any spigot would do.

Then, Eureka! I found it!

I tuned out Bush, and it turned on bliss;
bubbling Bliss
from deep down – within.

Now, I’m a blissful old man

[or am I?] .

 

*This whimsical poem was written soon after the beginning of the 21st century: with Y2K, the unprecedented Supreme Court selection and inauguration of the Bush-Cheney administration, and the terrorism of 9/11/2000, as alleged justification for severe civil liberties deprivations and insane wars that followed 9/11. Now in March 2012, I’ve come to regard the name “Bush” as a metaphor for most American politicians and politics, which I then viewed with dismay and disdain. But now, though still deeply concerned with planetary crises and suffering caused by insane and undemocratic decisions of so-called leaders, I’ve gradually come to see “what is” as a mostly destined play of incarnate Cosmic Consciousness. And while intending to be a compassionate presence that helps our precious planet and its lifeforms with beneficent thoughts, words, and deeds, I long for existence as Oneness Awareness, even beyond bliss.



Ron’s recitation of Tuned Out, To Turn On.

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Synchronicities Are Reminders


“Remember God, forget the rest.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings



In our wonderful world
of space/time causality reality,
everything’s impermanent –
arising from and melting into Mystery.

The Mystery of an Infinite Potentiality Reality:

Beyond conception,
Beyond description,
Beyond comprehension,
Beyond imagination.

Some call it Cosmic Consciousness.

Cosmic Consciousness is
the Essence,
the Origin, and
the Witness
of the world.
It is our ultimate Reality.

Our ever impermanent world
of apparent appearance and disappearance –
of infinite forms and phenomena –
is only a play of Cosmic Consciousness.

All such appearances are but
interdependently interconnected forms
of Cosmic Consciousness.

So synchronicities are manifestations of Cosmic Consciousness.

They are noteworthy forms and phenomena in space/time,
reminding us of ultimate Reality beyond space/time –
and of mysterious and timeless interdependent interconnectedness
of everything in space/time.

So synchronicities are reminders
of timeless Mystery beyond all appearances:

Reminders of our universal essence, origin and witness;
Reminders of our ultimate identity;
Reminders of Infinite Potentiality Reality;
Reminders of Cosmic Consciousness.

As mysterious synchronicities appear in our lives,
let us ever more reverently recall and become their Source –

Our universal essence, origin and witness;
Our ultimate identity, and
Infinite Potentiality Reality.

And so may it BE!



Ron’s audio recitation of Synchronicities Are Reminders

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Know THAT!

“You are awareness, disguised as a person.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
“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



Spirit are we -
Ever free;

Not body, not thought,
As we have been taught.

For body’s just ballast
that keeps us in time,

’Til we know –
Truth sublime.

Then to ascend in Eternal Bliss,

Merged with THAT –
Beyond all this.



Ron’s audio recitation of Know THAT!

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How Can We Become Immortal?

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.

So, to be immortal, don’t just be a mortal –

BE Eternal Awareness –

NOW!

 

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How Shall We Pray?

“Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.”
~ Socrates
“Prayers go up and blessings come down.”
~ Yiddish Proverb


praying

HOW SHALL WE PRAY?

Pray for God to do through you –

Not for you.

Pray like Saint Francis of Assisi:

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy Peace.”



Ron’s audio recitation of How Shall We Pray



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Beyond Being: Infinite Awareness— Ever NOW

“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.

But in Reality,
we are ONE.

Beyond being:

Eternally boundless
Infinite Awareness –
Ever NOW.



Ron’s audio recitation of Beyond Being- Infinite Awareness— Ever NOW

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Brains

“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”.


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Happy New Year!

“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 –

LOVE.

AND SO MAY IT BE!






Ron’s audio recitation of Happy New Year!

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Subject-Object?

“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.”

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Surrender: 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

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The Lightworker Objective ~ by Owen Waters

“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


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What is Ego?

“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“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


Ron’s audio recitation of What is Ego?
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I Have Learned So Much ~ by Hafiz


“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

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From Role Life To Whole Life

“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

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Voice In My Head?

“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?

Who am I?



Ron’s recitation of Voice In My Head

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True Vision

“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
“Seeing the Invisible is Knowing what’s possible –
Knowing that nothing’s impossible for the Invisible.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
~ Michelangelo



True vision is insight, not eyesight.

Eyesight is mind–sight.
Insight is soul sight.

Eyesight is from mental movement.
Insight is from mental stillness.

Eyesight is then;
Insight is NOW.

Eyesight sees separation;
Insight reveals unity of Reality.

Enlightened vision is
Eyesight with Insight.



Ron’s audio recitation of True Vision

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Only Breath ~ by Rumi


“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)



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Never Mind!

This world is wrought with naught but thought.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Thinking and Being can’t coexist.
So stop thinking and start Being.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Forget who you think you are
to Know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Spirit speaks when mind is mute.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Essence Of Nondualism:
Consciousness = Subject = Object = Self
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings




From mind comes this:



From this comes that:


But that is this –

and this is that.

So, never mind –

And that is THAT!



Ron’s audio recitation of Never Mind!

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