“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

“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

“We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
~ Albert Einstein

“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

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
~ Dr. Seuss

The quest is in the question.
The question is the answer.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

When questioning begins, certainty ends.
When certainty ends, wisdom begins.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

Was space/time causality “reality” ‘created’ 5000 years ago
– or previously?

Or is “reality” ever ‘created’ instant by instant
– ever NOW?

Is there a Divine ‘design plan’?

If so, who is the Divine ‘designer’?  Is S/HE friendly?

And if so, why and how did Divinity ‘design’ “reality”?

Is evolution ever implicit in “creation”?

If evolution happens, who/what evolves:
Living organisms? ‘Human consciousness’?  “Life”? “Reality”?

Is evolution inevitable, or just optional;
is it imperative, or just elective?

Do we always evolve, or sometimes devolve?

What is our Source?  Do we emerge from Divinity?

After ‘creation’, do we seek our Source, as a matter of course?

Do we ultimately dissolve in Divinity – or merge with Mystery?

Does Spirit mind, 
and does mind matter?

What really matters?

It’s all MYSTERY!

“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

“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?

“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

“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’

“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

“Wherever I look, I see men quarreling 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

“For it is in giving that we receive.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi

The value of a man resides in what he gives
and not in what he is capable of receiving.

~ Albert Einstein

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.

~ Lao Tzu

It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.
~ Mother Teresa

“If you wish to experience peace,
provide peace for another.”
~ Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama

Life is for giving, not getting;

For Being, not having.

Love gives and forgives.

Ego gets and forgets.

It is in giving that we receive.

So, let us end our obsession with possession,

And live to give, and to be –

LOVE.

Ron’s audio comments and recitation of Life is For Giving

“Truth is a pathless land.”
~ J.Krishnamurti

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life”
~ John 14:6

Truth is pathless.
Truth is mindless.
Truth is wordless.
Truth is timeless.

Truth is everywhere and nowhere –

NOW.

To know truth,
be Truth.

To know life,
be Life.

To know the way,
be the Way.

NOW!

Ron’s audio recitation of Truth is Everywhere/ Nowhere/ Now.

“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

As we commemorate another Earth Day, 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. Honey bee colonies crucial to pollination of food crops are disappearing; nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies in the US have vanished. 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”:

“Peace and the survival of life on earth as we know it are threatened by human activities that lack a commitment to humanitarian values. Destruction of nature and natural resources results from ignorance, greed and lack of respect for the earth’s living things.

This lack of respect extends even to the earth’s human descendants, the future generations who will inherit a vastly degraded planet if world peace does not become a reality, and if destruction of the natural environment continues at the present rate.

Our ancestors viewed the earth as rich and bountiful, which it is. Many people in the past also saw nature as inexhaustibly sustainable, which we know is the case only if we care for it.

It is not difficult to forgive destruction in the past which resulted from ignorance. Today, however, we have access to more information; it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to coming generations.

Many of the earth’s habitats, animals, plants, insects and even micro-organisms that we know to be rare may not be known at all by future generations. We have the capability and the responsibility to act; we must do so before it is too late.

Just as we should cultivate gentle and peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, we should also extend that same kind of attitude towards the natural environment. Morally speaking, we should be concerned for our whole environment.

This, however, is not just a question of morality or ethics, but a question of our own survival. For this generation and for future generations, the environment is very important. If we exploit the environment in extreme ways, we will suffer, as will our future generations. When the environment changes, the climatic condition also changes. When the climate changes dramatically, the economy and many other things change. Our physical health will be greatly affected. Again, conservation is not merely a question of morality, but a question of our own survival.

Therefore, in order to achieve more effective environmental protection and conservation, internal balance within the human being himself or herself is essential. The negligence of the environment, which has resulted in great harm to the human community, resulted from our ignorance of the very special importance of the environment. We must now help people to understand the need for environmental protection. We must teach people to understand the need for environmental protection. We must teach people that conservation directly aids our survival.

If you must be selfish, then be wise and not narrow-minded in your selfishness. The key point lies in the sense of universal responsibility. That is the real source of strength, the real source of happiness. If we exploit everything available, such as trees, water and minerals, and if we don’t plan for our next generation, for the future, then we’re at fault, aren’t we? However, if we have a genuine sense of universal responsibility as our central motivation, then our relations with the environment, and with all our neighbours, will be well balanced.

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.”

(From “Humanity and Ecology”, © 1988, The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama)

“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

“Faith is the highest passion in a human being.
Many in every generation may not come that far,
but none comes further.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard

“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.”
~ Matthew 17:20

Ron’s hints for happiness: 

Even if it’s difficult for you to believe these spiritual principles, your life will be happier if you live as if they were true, with faith and love.  Whether or not you believe in spiritual evolution or predestiny, just pretend that everything in your life is happening for the best, in the best way and at the best time. And accept difficulties as evolutionary opportunities, without remorse or regret about the past or worry or fear of the future.  Sow love, harvest happiness.

Downloadable pdf file: IndianSpirituality

* Source and author are unknown

“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?