Posts Tagged ‘Frank Lloyd Wright’

Honoring Nature
~ Quotes and Video

“One touch of nature
makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare
“Nature is our nature;
Honoring Nature is honoring Self.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings




Introduction

Dear Friends,


In this critical era of worldwide violence and turmoil, our amazingly beautiful planet is imminently and insanely threatened (by immensely destructive technologies) with possible human caused omnicidal nuclear or climate catastrophe, ending Earth life as we’ve known it.

Therefore we must urgently awaken humanity’s instinctive primal awareness that Nature is our nature; that Nature knows best and will have its Way; that we are not dependent upon exploitation of our precious planet or its lifeforms, but interdependent with it and all life thereon; that we can no longer unsustainably exploit Nature and others without dire consequences; that we must honor – not desecrate – Nature.

The following profound “Nature” quotation collection and beautiful “Creation Calling” embedded video are offered to help awaken our minds and open our hearts to realization of Humankind’s urgent need to avert calamity by Honoring Nature, NOW!

And so shall it be!

Ron Rattner


Honoring Nature ~ Quotation Collection

“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

“The entire world we apprehend through our senses
is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature.”
~ Max Planck

“Human subtlety will never devise an invention
more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature;
because in her inventions nothing is lacking,
and nothing is superfluous.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
“All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.”
~ Aristotle

“If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.”
~ Vincent Van Gogh

“In nature we never see anything isolated,
but everything in connection with something else
which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Every particular in nature,
a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time
is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Lose yourself in nature and find peace.”
“Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.”
~ Rachel Carson

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth
and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.”
~ Rachel Carson

“When we pay attention to nature’s music,
we find that everything on the Earth contributes to its harmony.”
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright

“Nature is the living, visible garment of God.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity;
so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein


“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,
man will not himself find peace.”

~ Albert Schweitzer


“There are no passengers on spaceship earth.
We are all crew.”
~ Marshall McLuhan

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children”
~ Chief Seattle


“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment
must come from the human heart,
[from] a genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”

~ Dalai Lama


“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister,
Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us,
and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”

“This sister now cries out to us
because of the harm we have inflicted on her
by our irresponsible use and abuse
of the goods with which God has endowed her.”

~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message

“Nature is neither pleasant nor painful.
It is all intelligence and beauty.
Pain and pleasure are in the mind.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.”
~ Samuel Johnson

“Each thing tends to move towards its own nature.
I always desire happiness which is my true nature.
My nature is never a burden to me.
Happiness is never a burden to me, whilst sorrow is.”
~ Adi Shankara

“Because after all, you ARE a symptom of nature.
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

“I see trees of green, red roses too.
I see them bloom for me and you.
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white.
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.
And I think to myself what a wonderful world”
~ Louis Armstrong


Honoring Nature ~ Creation Calls — are you listening?




Invocation

May Humankind Awaken NOW
from our long-inculcated illusion
of separation from Nature. 

So Awakened,
may we deeply realize that Nature is our nature;
that what we unsustainably do to Nature
we do to ourselves; and
that it is our responsibility
to honor, cherish and preserve
Earth-life as we’ve known it.

And so Awakened,
may we urgently honor
Nature’s uniquely precious ecology and environment,
with a “genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.


And so shall it be!
!

Ron Rattner

Atheists Beware!
~ Verses, Quotations and Explanations

“Yes, all one’s confusion comes to an end if one only realizes that
it is God who manifests Himself as the atheist and the believer,
the good and the bad, the real and the unreal;
that it is He who is present in waking and in sleep;
and that He is beyond all these.” …
”God alone is the Doer. Everything happens by His will.”

~ Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“I don’t try to imagine a personal God;
it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world,
insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.”
~ Albert Einstein
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself
in the orderly harmony of what exists,
not in a God who concerns himself
with fates and actions of human beings.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Atheism is a disease of the soul,
before it becomes an error of the understanding.”
~ Plato
“There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who,
when danger is pressing in, will not acknowledge the divine power.”
~ Plato
“Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism,
but larger amounts bring us back to God.”
~ Francis Bacon
“The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself;
but is the Theist any other?
Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
The worst moment for the atheist
is when he is really thankful
and has nobody to thank.                    
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti
“Atheism is a non-prophet organization”
~ George Carlin
“I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.”
~ Albert Camus
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“Since no one really knows anything about God,
those who think they do are just troublemakers.”
~ Rabia of Basri (First female Sufi saint)




Atheists Beware!

We reify what we resist.

And as we persist in resisting,

We attract and become what we resist.

So atheists, beware!

In vehemently denying Divinity,
you are reifying and deifying “God”.

And as you opine,
you’re becoming Divine.



Ron’s audio recitation of “Atheists Beware!”

Listen to



Ron’s explanation of “Atheists Beware!”

The foregoing whimsical “Atheists Beware” verses were composed after I’d begun to sometimes see our space/time ‘reality’ as an ever paradoxical play of Divine ONENESS.

Before my midlife awakening to Self identity as Awareness, I don’t remember thinking about existence (or non-existence) of a creator “God”. However, I tacitly accepted the core Hebrew precept: “Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE” (Deuteronomy 6:4), and considered “God” as ONE universally immanent, nameless, formless, nonjudgmental Supreme Power. And I rejected ideas of a humanoid, personal or judgmental God. Hence, after childhood I always interpreted Bible legends metaphorically – not as ‘the word of God’ explicitly spoken through special messengers.

Until my midlife awakening, I hadn’t shed tears as an adult. But upon awakening to a new life at age forty three, I cried for twenty four hours. Thereafter, while others were frequent flyers, I became a ‘frequent crier’. And I wondered why I was crying so much, until experientially realizing with utter amazement that I was crying with intense longing for “God”. (See Beholding The Eternal Light Of Consciousness.) 

Since then, I’ve spent much time reflecting about “God”. And I’ve found that my beliefs and ideas about “God” have evolved as I’ve opened spiritually; that my curiosity about God has emanated from a universal human longing (conscious or subliminal) for a state of ONENESS with THAT.

Curiosity about “God” soon sparked interest in “atheism” and “atheists”. (See Monistic Musings – Reflections and Questions on “God” and Divinity) Also, I soon realized that – as the Bible says – “God” is word – used by different people to designate their different ideas of a transcendent power; that, whether or not the “universe” was created by God, “God” is a concept created by man. (See God is a Word.)

And ultimately I irreversibly accepted and honored the perennial mystery of Divine Reality beyond space/time duality.  
(See e.g. Mystery of Divinity)

Thus it paradoxically appeared to me that worldly people who adamantly professed with certainty to be most religious – or atheistic – were usually most intolerant of those with other religious, spiritual or philosophic views; that their professed fundamentalist certainty about superiority of their philosophy – masked deep doubt, ignorance or insecurity about the transcendent Divine mystery.

Ultimately, my reflections about “God” resulted in my living a faith-based life. After years of questioning, I found faith beyond belief, beyond dogmas or theology. I found faith in everything everywhere, and in the impenetrable Mystery beyond every form or phenomenon. I found faith in my Self and in Nature. And faith to devotionally follow my Heart. So I became a non-dualist lover of God – a Bhakta – especially inspired by by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who taught and demonstrated that

“[A]ll one’s confusion (about God) comes to an end if one only realizes that
 it is God who manifests Himself as the atheist and the believer, 
the good and the bad, the real and the unreal.”

(See I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life and Discovering and Honoring Devotional “Holy Fools”)

So the foregoing whimsical “Atheists Beware” verses were composed from a faith-based perspective of Divine ONENESS; that “it is God who manifests …. as [both] the atheist and the believer.”

The poem ironically reveals that, in adamantly resisting “God”, worldly atheists are unable to realize their ultimate divinity – that paradoxically they are what they resist; a realization that is transcendentally Knowable only by rare beings, like Ramakrishna.

Dedication and Invocation of “Atheists Beware”

Inspired by deep curiosity, reflection and intuition about “God”,

may we gradually discover and experience our common inner Divine Source,

Until ultimately our ego-minds melt and merge with THAT:

Universal Spirit, Being, Awareness, Bliss;
Eternal Peace, Life, Light, LOVE

And so shall it be!

Ron Rattner