Posts Tagged ‘Happiness’

Kol Nidré ritual prayer

Cantor Netanel Hershtik singing Kol Nidre

Introduction

Dear Friends,

Concurrent with Jewish high holy days I recently posted memoirs about Forgiving the Past to Live in the Present which describe and explain “Kol Nidrei” the Jewish Yom Kippur opening prayer, that repents “sins” and seeks Divine forgiveness or rescission of the past year’s obsolete vows, intentions or behaviors. That memoirs posting describes the hauntingly beautiful “Kol Nidrei” melodies which powerfully project deep sacred meaning beyond the prayer’s vocalized Aramaic words.

However, the posting fails to include audio-visual performances of Kol Nidrei.

So as a musical epilogue to Forgiving the Past to Live in the Present I have hereafter embedded two exemplary YouTube performances of the ancient Kol Nidrei ritual prayer:

1) A an historic 2003 video recording of American Cantor Netanel Hershtik singing Kol Nidre at Amsterdam’s 17th century Portuguese Synagogue, one of the world’s most architecturally important synagogues. This performance was produced and repeatedly aired by PBS stations during Jewish holidays and fund-raising drives for years thereafter. It was part of a Jewish sacred music concert in Europe, arranged by PBS.

2) A legendary orchestral performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim with renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré (his deceased wife) of German composer Max Bruch’s “Adagio after Hebrew Melodies”, Op 47, for cello and orchestra. Bruch, a Christian Protestant, was “deeply moved” by the haunting beauty of the ancient “Kol Nidrei” liturgical music. And he considered the cello’s tenor tone as ideally evoking a Jewish cantor’s voice. So In 1880 he composted his still popular Op 47, with beautiful ancient Jewish melodies.

Conclusion

Spiritually, Kol Nidrei melodies have for centuries emanated and communicated instinctive human awareness of our unavoidable fallibility as physically incarnate earth-beings unable to live without error or beyond the “sin” of missing the mark for ethically perfect behaviors.

Please enjoy these haunting melodies, accordingly.

Ron Rattner

Videos

2003 video recording of American Cantor Netanel Hershtik singing Kol Nidre at Amsterdam’s 17th century Portuguese Synagogue



Max Bruch’s “Adagio after Hebrew Melodies”, Op 47, for cello and orchestra, performed by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim with renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré (his deceased wife)




Composting Life’s Sufferings

“All formations are ‘transient’ (anicca); all formations are ‘subject to suffering’ (dukkha); all things are ‘without a self’ (anatt ). 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. ”

~ Buddha

“Suffering is the way for Realization of God.”

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

“There are those who say that in their heaven there is no suffering.
But if there is no suffering, how can there be happiness?
We need compost to grow flowers, and mud to grow lotuses.
If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses.
If you know how to make good use of suffering, you can produce happiness.”

“We do need some suffering to make happiness possible.
And most of us have enough suffering inside and around us to be able to do that.
We don’t have to create more.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means they are both transitory; they are always changing. The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again.
Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature.
It can become suffering, and suffering can become happiness again.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“The ground’s generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty!
Try to be more like the ground.”
~ Rumi

“Earth is a world of mysterious interdependently co-arising complexities,
which we’re constantly composting, but can’t comprehend.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings 

“No matter how we strive, no body leaves alive.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings





Composting Life’s Sufferings

Introduction to “Composting Life’s Sufferings”

Dear Friends,

The following comments on “Composting Life’s Sufferings” are dedicated to helping us insightfully examine and improve our lives as human beings on planet Earth, where suffering is inevitable. They metaphorically view our physical lifetimes as natural evolutionary processes, by comparing them to the composting process, well known to organic farmers and gardeners, and to urban waste processors.

They are intended and dedicated to encouraging us to skillfully process our psychological ‘garbage’, and thereby to experience ever increasing happiness, and ultimate fulfillment of our deepest inner aspirations.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Comments on “Composting Life’s Sufferings”

In Nature, everything’s energy – E=mc2. And nothing’s wasted; all energy is conserved. Eventually everything is recycled.

As part of Nature, all human bodies are recycled. Every physical body inevitably dies, disintegrates and is returned to Mother Earth.


“No matter how we strive, no body leaves alive.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings


But each physical human body is survived by subtle bodies: astral, mental, and causal.
And – like all else in Nature – these subtle bodies are not wasted. After persisting in other planes, most are recycled. They are accessed and used as ‘software’ for other physical bodies, in a process known as reincarnation. In very rare cases they may transcend all worlds of form, and merge with infinite eternal Awareness – their Source.

Composting is a natural recycling process. Biodynamic farmers and organic gardeners know that organic material can be composted, recycled and re-used as mulch for growing new plants. Composting enriches the ground where new plant-life is cultivated, and so hastens Nature’s continuing recycling processes.

Just as composting physical garbage can hasten our garden’s growth, we can advance our spiritual growth process by composting our ‘psychological garbage’. Thus, Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh counsels us to metaphorically compost our anger to transform it into “peace, love, and understanding”, and our suffering to “produce happiness”.

Human life has inevitable ‘ups and downs’, difficulties, and challenges. Though we appear physically different, mentally and emotionally we all share similar ‘software’, with which we process life’s challenges.

Therefore, let us naturally and cooperatively ‘compost’ earth-life’s unavoidable challenges and sufferings by lovingly, fearlessly and faithfully following our heart.


“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha


Invocation

May we fearlessly follow our heart
to naturally and harmoniously process suffering
by “composting” our “psychological garbage”
for ever growing “peace, love, and understanding”
to “produce happiness”, and ultimate
fulfillment of our deepest aspirations.


And so may it be!


Ron Rattner

Open Heart Therapy

“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha

“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
~ Rumi

“Your pain is the medicine by which the
physician within heals thyself.”
“Even as the stone of the fruit must break,
that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain.”
~ Kahlil Gibran

“We must feel our heart
to heal our heart.
Feeling hastens healing.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched –
they must be felt with the heart.”
~ Helen Keller

“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

“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

“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas




Open Heart Therapy

Introduction to “Open Heart Therapy”

Dear Friends,

The following sutra-poem was inspired by my realization that a broken heart (from a very painful divorce), had opened my spiritual heart to previously suppressed deep devotional feelings and frequent tears; that a broken heart had triggered an awakened evolutionary healing process – a ‘‘breakdown-breakthrough” from decades of ego-mind afflictions.

Since long-ago composing “Open Heart Therapy”, I’ve become a “faith-based optimist”. Hence, following the sutra-poem’s words and recitation below, I optimistically explain with comments and quotes, why I now foresee that a “critical mass” of awakened people with opened spiritual hearts will soon actualize an elevated a new earth-age – an historically unprecedented era transcending current worldwide human insanity which catastrophically threatens all life on our precious planet.

These sutra verses and writings are deeply dedicated to optimistically inspiring our energetically uplifted transcendence of ego-mind’s evolutionary impediments, and so to hastening our spiritual transformation.

May they thereby encourage us to enjoy health and freedom, beyond fearful ego-mind sufferings.


Ron Rattner

Open Heart Therapy

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.

And as its boundaries expand,
so do its possibilities ever expand.

An opened heart
is an illumined heart;
a limitless, boundless heart;
a loving heart.



Ron’s audio recitation of “Open Heart Therapy”

Listen to



Ron’s Reflections on “Open Heart Therapy”
for Awakening to an Elevated New Age.

Dear Friends,

We live in an age of mental malaise. Delusional human behaviors are threatening all Earth life as we have known it. For our peaceful survival, we must transcend these insane behaviors and resolve the problems they have caused.

As Albert Einstein aptly observed: 

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” …

“The release of atom power ..changed everything except our way of thinking …
the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”


Thus for our peaceful survival on planet Earth, the critical problems now confronting humanity must be transcended – societally and individually – through spiritually elevated heartfelt awareness.

According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama,

“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.”


Also the Dalai Lama says that, for such a heart level of universal planetary responsibility, we need ethics based on spirituality “beyond religion” – because religion alone “is no longer adequate”.

How can this happen?

With ever expanding empathy for all life everywhere we must follow ‘the Golden Rule’. For millennia wisdom teachers from virtually all enduring ethical, religious, and spiritual traditions have proposed a simple ethical rule which if conscientiously followed will change the world.

Its essence is that we do no harm; that we treat all sentient beings with the same dignity that we wish for ourselves and that they wish for themselves.

Though easy to understand, this Golden Rule of reciprocal empathy can not easily be followed until we awaken within – beyond ego-mind’s “optical illusion” of separateness – to indivisible spiritual Wholeness with all beings and all life everywhere.

Then as Einstein suggests we must gradually

“widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” 


Eventually, we won’t even need the Golden rule. As my beloved Guruji Shri Dhyanyogi revealed:

“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.” 


Ultimately, by following our sacred heart we’ll be in harmony with all life everywhere.

Conclusion and Dedication

As a “faith-based optimist”, I now foresee that a “critical mass” of awakened people with opened spiritual hearts will soon actualize an elevated new earth-age – an historically unprecedented era transcending current worldwide human insanity which catastrophically threatens all life on our precious planet.

Thus today’s sutra verses and writings are optimistically dedicated to inspiring our energetically uplifted transcendence of ego-mind’s evolutionary impediments to an egalitarian new age, and so to hasten our spiritual transformation beyond fearful suffering to health and spiritual freedom.

Invocation

With opened and awakened hearts,
may we envision and actualize an egalitarian new age,
wherein everyone everywhere treats all beings and all life
with the same dignity that they wish for themselves –
with a “genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”

And so shall it be!

Ron Rattner

Becoming a Faith-Based Optimist
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“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.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Faith is intuitive conviction, a knowing from the soul,
that cannot be shaken even by contradictions.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

“I’m only a cockeyed optimist . . .
stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can’t get it out of my heart!”
~ Oscar Hammerstein II, South Pacific, lyrics

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.
Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
“Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.”
~ Helen Keller

“The highest thinkers of the ages,
the seers of the tribes and the nations,
have been optimists.”
~ Helen Keller

“An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer

“Steady faith is stronger than destiny.
Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental,
and is therefore loosely woven.
Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Even faith in God is only a stage on the way.
Ultimately you abandon all, for you come to something so simple that there are no words to express it.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Optimism optimizes opportunity.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings


Hanuman


Becoming a Faith-Based Optimist ~ Ron’s Memoirs

Introduction to “Becoming a Faith-Based Optimist”

Dear Friends,

In prior postings I’ve told how “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”, and defined faith as distinguished from belief. And I’ve explained that inner faith in the Divine, is the same as faith in one’s Self, and that such inner faith can bring us previously unimagined happiness.

Today I’ll tell how I found faith in Divine Self in a midlife transition from self-reliant secular litigation lawyer to devotional “born-again Hindu”; and how that faith became an optimistically unshakable conviction that everything happens for the best, until we transcend the ego illusion of existing separately in space/time.

And because these memoirs are published on commencement of important Equinox religious holy days, I’m including a 2022 Equinox Epilogue.

Memoirs of “Becoming a Faith-Based Optimist”

Soon after receiving 1978 shaktipat initiation from my beloved Guruji, I began daily Sanskrit recitations of a Ram mantra and the Hanuman Chalisa – a rhymed poetic ode to the mythological Vedic ‘monkey-god’ Hanuman (pictured above). The Hanuman Chalisa (composed by poet-saint and philosopher Tulsidas) metaphorically venerates Hanuman, who faithfully served Hindu avatar Rama, as the epitome of faith in God.

Shri Ramakrishna Paramahansa (with whom I feel deep devotional affinity) often cited an epic Ramayana story about Hanuman heroically leaping over the sea between South India and Shri Lanka (Ceylon) to serve Rama, as illustrating the epitome of divine faith. In the Gospel of Ramakrishna, he taught:

“You must have heard about the tremendous power of faith. It is said . . that Rama, who was God Himself – the embodiment of Absolute Brahman – had to build a bridge to cross the sea to Ceylon. But Hanuman, trusting in Rama’s name, cleared the sea in one jump and reached the other side. He had no need of a bridge.” . . . . “Once a person has faith he has achieved everything. There is nothing greater than faith.”


While repeatedly reciting Ram mantras and the Hanuman Chalisa, I felt their devotional energy while unconcerned about their precise Sanskrit meaning. And I became instinctively harmonious with Ram, as Divinity. Even today (at almost age ninety), I still often instinctively call out to Rama in devotionally honoring the Divine. And Hanuman energy became and remains for me symbolic of both enduring Faith and immutable optimism.

After I became an instinctive Rama devotee, I realized that my initial secular self-confidence and optimism had gradually grown to heartfelt Faith in God; that I’d evolved from being a pragmatic secular optimist into living a devotional faith-based life, with both conviction and optimism.

Also, I realized that with Faith it’s always best follow one’s conscience in all behaviors, and to surrender outcomes of such conscientious behaviors to Divine Source (or Tao) – to let go and go with the flow; because karmically whatever happens could not be otherwise. So, to clear our karma, we must non-judgmentally and forgivingly accept and bless everything and everyone NOW, as ephemeral and illusory appearances in ever impermanent space and time of our sole Divine Source – ineffable, immutable, and Eternal LOVE.

My insights revealed that our earthly sufferings arise from fearful and illusory ego-mind thoughts because we forget our true Divinity and immortality.
But that as omnipotent immortal spirit we have nothing to fear from anything that seems to happen in always illusory ego-mind space, time, and duality. Moreover, that our transcendence of ego-mind is inevitable, and always advanced by our loving behaviors.

2022 Equinox Epilogue

These memoirs are published concurrent with commencement of the Jewish High Holy Days, and the Hindu Navaratri shraddha period. In prior times I participated in both Jewish and Hindu religious ritual observances of these important holidays.

But in recent years, I’ve stopped attending all scheduled religious ritual services. As an innately faith-based optimist, I now continuously honor God every day and everywhere with Divine intentions, behaviors, and prayers, and with the SillySutras spiritual poetry and philosophy website.

Yet, I’ve instinctively realized that beyond ego-mind’s persistent “optical illusion” of a space, time, and duality worldly “reality”, all that is, was, or will be is NOW. Thus, that being a worldly faith-based optimist (with hope for the future) is like aspiring to an “impossible dream” of a never-attainable mental mirage – a time-based dreamlike fantasy “reality” that can never exist.

Optimists instinctively hope for the best. But “hope” is always “then” while Life is only NOW, ever NOW, never then.

However, since inception of the current historically unprecedented post-pandemic “new normal” era, I’ve become optimistically convinced, and foresee, that a “critical mass” of energetically elevated humans will soon co-create (as a cooperative global family) an infinitely more compassionate world, without fearful ego-mind deprivations and sufferings.

And these faith-based equinox memoirs are deeply dedicated to inspiring and hastening our imminent fulfillment of that optimistic prediction.

Conclusions

I’ve become and irreversibly remain a faith-based optimist, despite apparent cataclysmic threats against survival of human life as we’ve known it.  And I equate my instinctive optimism with inner Faith in our sole Divine Source – ineffable, immutable, and Eternal LOVE.

Therefore I’m especially grateful to be able to now share these memoirs with you to help us realize and enjoy supreme fulfillment and happiness from ever optimistic faith in Divine LOVE, until we ascend and transcend all ego-mind perception-deception illusion.

Invocation

“May we ever ascend –
as LOVE and Light,

Beyond-all suffering,
from ego-mind fright.”


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


“Cockeyed optimist” video

To further encourage our heartfelt faith-based optimism, I’ve embedded below a YouTube video performance of the Rodgers and Hammerstein ‘cockeyed optimist’ song from “South Pacific”.

Please optimistically enjoy it as we energetically ascend as Love and Light,
beyond all suffering from ego-mind fright.



Healing is Wholing
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“Life is a healing/wholing/gnosis/process.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“Feeling hastens healing,
and happiness heals.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“Evolution is an endless process –

from nescience, to gnosis, to apotheosis;

From bestial to celestial –

We ever evolve, as our boundaries dissolve.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings





“Healing is Wholing” ~ Ron’s Memoirs

Ron’s Introduction to “Healing is Wholing”

Dear Friends,

The following “Healing is Wholing” writings epigrammatically express and explain my post-awakening perspectives about spiritual healing.

They include quotations, sutra sayings and verses (with mp3 recitation) defining, describing and revealing an holistic and evolutionary earth-life ego-mind “healing” process; also included are memoirs explanations about the synchronistic circumstances which motivated their composition long ago.

They are dedicated to inspiring our transformational transcendence of ego-mind’s evolutionary impediments, and so to hasten our spiritual evolution from “nescience, to gnosis, to apotheosis” – our continuing process of “healing” beyond suffering to health and spiritual freedom.

Explanation of “Healing is Wholing”

Since my midlife awakening I’ve gradually realized that all humans and other life-forms are deeply inter-connected.

So to heal our planet’s pervasive pathologies and disharmonies, our lives and ills must be viewed and addressed holistically and systemically, not just symptomatically. Identifying and treating separate symptoms may afford temporary relief, but it can’t cure their causes.

We live in an earth-age of mental malaise – in an extremely fearful, stressful, disharmonious and turbulent illusory world, with widespread human psychological and physical sicknesses and suffering; a world so insane that we appear to be on the brink of human caused nuclear cataclysm or ecological omnicide.

So this posting is dedicated to elevating energies of “human consciousness” beyond illusory states of fear and suffering by identifying and healing the causes of our pathologies. As explained in many other Silly Sutras postings, the root cause of our problems is ego-mind.

“Ego-mind” is our mistaken mental self-identification as mortal entities separate from from each other and Nature, and from Universal Awareness, our Eternal essence and sole spiritual Source.

So to spiritually “heal” many human pathologies, disharmonies and sufferings we must identify, and holistically transcend “ego”.

Memoirs synchronicity story about “Healing is Wholing”

Today’s “Healing is Wholing” poetic verses and sutra sayings arose from these synchronistic circumstances:

After my inner awakening and years of public service as Board Chairman of the California Institute of Integral Studies [CIIS] , I retired from all other public pro-bono activities, but continued serving on the Board of New Dimensions Foundation, a groundbreaking independent producer of spiritual radio interviews. And then became friendly with fellow Board member Dr. Anne Wilson-Schaef, Ph.D, a long-practicing psychotherapist, and best selling spiritual author.

Following years of conventional psychotherapy practice, Dr. Schaef had decided that psychotherapy didn’t work. So she originated and began leading worldwide ‘workshops’ based on 12-step therapy principles which she called “living in process intensives”. She described her “living in process” ideas in her controversially popular book: “Beyond Therapy, Beyond Science: A New Model For Healing The Whole Person”.

In that book Dr. Schaef described society as addictively and psychologically alienated from the whole universe and its universal spirituality. And she asserted that traditionally dualistic Newtonian sciences and psychotherapies co-dependently enabled an “Addictive Society”, just as individual enablers co-dependently fostered addictions (like alcoholism).

So to heal and spiritually transform our alienated societies she proposed going beyond conventional dualistic psychotherapies to a natural evolutionary process of experiential transformation, which she called “living in process”.

At Dr. Schaef’s request for my editorial comments, I carefully read a pre-publication galley proof of a new edition of her “Beyond Therapy” book. In it I recognized that many of her then controversial conclusions and proposals, were harmonious with my perspectives about conventional versus spiritual psychotherapy. For example Dr. Schaef’s proposals were consistent with my view that secular psychology merely attempts to alleviate ego’s inevitable mental suffering, whereas spiritual psychotherapy aims at eliminating our psychological imprisonment. (See https://sillysutras.com/spiritual-psychotherapy/)

Dr. Schaef’s proposed text often used both concepts of “recovery” (as from addictive habit patterns) as well as “healing” (as in the subtitle “A New Model For Healing The Whole Person”}. Though I understood Dr. Schaef’s proposals, I was concerned that other readers might mistakenly conflate the separate “recovering” and “healing” concepts; that “recovering” implied returning from addiction to a prior condition of adjustment to a sick society, whereas “healing” meant being uplifted beyond habitual dependencies to a higher and freer state of being.

So, to tactfully communicate this concern to Dr. Schaef, I ‘channeled’ and sent her these sutra verses about the “healing” process as revealing a new state of spiritual wholeness, beyond adjustment to a sick society:

Please consider and enjoy them!

Ron Rattner

Healing is Wholing

Healing is Wholing.

Healing is revealing,
Not re-covering.

Healing is un-covering;
Healing is dis-covering:

Wholeness,
Holiness,
SELF!



Ron’s audio recitation of “Healing is Wholing”

Listen to



Conclusion

Healing is our individual (and societal) experience of transcending suffering; not of recovering from illness to a prior state of wellbeing, but a process of ever evolving to elevated, expanded, and previously unknown psychological perspectives, beyond prior states of suffering – of continuously discovering and experiencing freer states of being until we become and BE WHOLE, beyond ego-mind’s illusory psychic self-identification separation.

Dedication

These verses and writings are dedicated to inspiring our transformational transcendence of ego-mind’s evolutionary impediments, and so to hasten our spiritual evolution from “nescience, to gnosis, to apotheosis” – our continuing process of “healing” beyond suffering to health and spiritual freedom.

Invocation

“May we Wholly heal –
as LOVE and Light,

Beyond-all suffering,
from ego-mind fright.”


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Clearing “Human Consciousness”

“If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
~ William Blake
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.”
~ Carl Jung
“It is only through a change of human consciousness that the world will be transformed. 
The personal and the planetary are connected. As we expand our awareness of mind, body, psyche, and spirit and bring that awareness actively into the world, so also will the world be changed.”
~ Michael Toms, New Dimensions Radio introduction
Everything we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Just as dreamers ‘create’ their dreams,
 together we are a ‘dream-team’, 
karmically dreaming our world into being; and,
 consciously or unconsciously creating a ‘common dream’.”
“As we ever awaken,
 we shall consciously and cooperatively
 participate to co-create an ever better reality – 

as we intend, intuit, and imagine it to be.”
~ Ron Rattner, SillySutras.com Home Page Dedication






Clearing “Human Consciousness”

Ron’s Introduction

Dear Friends,

The following verses were composed during my extended post-retirement reclusive period of prayer and meditation. They are explained in the comments below.

Clearing Consciousness

“Christ consciousness”
“Cosmic consciousness”,
“Enlightened consciousness”,
“Buddha nature”


All are different terms connoting
the non-dual universal Absolute –
Unconditioned Awareness.

Ordinary “human consciousness” is
conditioned consciousness;

It is pure Awareness
conditioned by conceptions.

And our conceptual conditioning
determines our condition.

Everyone wants
enduring happiness,
freedom and love.

And what we seek,
we shall find –

As mindfully,
we decondition the mind.

As we lose illusory conceptual constraints,
we shall experience
ever expanding awareness,

And so we shall find –
enduring peace of mind.



Ron’s audio recitation of Clearing Consciousness

Listen to


Ron’s explanation of Clearing “Human Consciousness”

Dear Friends,

We are all part of a participatory natural order wherein everything/ everyone is interdependent; and in which everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way. (See, e.g. Synchronicity Inquiry) Even without words or thoughts we can powerfully communicate through our vibratory energetic emanations, and our tears, smiles, music, and other arts.

So by our compassionate or fearful energy emanations each of us (in our own unique way) is either advancing or deterring evolution of earth life everywhere. 

As part of the divine ‘design plan’, we are graced with infinite potentiality to individually and collectively advance all life on planet Earth, through our loving and compassionate thoughts, words, and deeds, even while we’re still experiencing illusionary ego-mind separation from Universal Awareness – our Divine Source and sole ultimate identity and Reality. Thus, as spiritually awakening beings we are helping to transform the world by clearing “human consciousness”.

In furtherance of the SillySutras website’s dedication to advancing our ‘conscious and cooperative co-creation of an ever better reality’, I have today posted the above poem and quotations about our unlimited human potential to transform the world.

May they inspire and encourage our active participation in clearing “human consciousness”, each from a unique perspective and in unique ways, to
“co-create an ever better reality – 
as we intend, intuit, and imagine it to be”.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Choosing To Live A Miraculous and Holy Life ~ Ron’s Memoirs


“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

“For everything that lives is Holy,

life delights in life.”

~ William Blake – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Try and penetrate the secrets of nature and you will find that,
behind all the discernible laws and connections,
there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.
Veneration for this force beyond anything we can comprehend is my religion.”
~ Albert Einstein

“The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness,

the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside.”

~ Swami Vivekananda

“Unless ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”
~ John 4:48

Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina,
May 25, 1887 – September 23, 1968
Capuchin Franciscan Friar with stigmata


Dear Friends,

On observing noteworthy mysteries which we can’t yet explain by known natural or scientific laws, we may call them “miracles” and attribute them to an Infinite or Divine Power, beyond human comprehension. Whether or not we call these phenomena “God” or Nature or Universal Intelligence, we can (like Albert Einstein) choose to live “as though everything is a miracle.” This memoirs posting outlines how I’ve begun regarding everything and everyone as divine and holy miracles.

My last “Miraculous Lotus Flower” memoirs posting told how I was obliged to change my description of a supposedly “real” blooming flower by physical proof revealed by my daughter Jessica Eve Rattner. However, I’ve been especially inspired by Sri Ramakrishna’s Teachings About God in All Beings to always remember that we have freedom of choice to perceive only Divine spirit or God – to see that everything is a Holy miracle – with love beyond fear or proof.

Today’s memoirs chapter discusses Divine “miracles” that can’t ever be scientifically or rationally explained, but are best accepted with faith as perpetual “unsolved” mysteries arising from “acts of God”. Perhaps the most inspiring such miraculous story yet posted on the SillySutras website is “Why The Choir Was Late” Similarly many other posted true synchronicity stories can be regarded as Divine mysteries beyond proof.

Some more unsolvable “miracles”

1) From May 1976 to February 1977, I had so many previously unprecedented premonitions, dreams, synchronicities, and precognitive and astral experiences that I began wondering whether we can astrally bi-locate, travel and transcend serial time. This still remains a question beyond scientific proof.

2) During April – May 1978, I synchronistically met my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, who demonstrated yogic powers which I’d never previously imagined possible. These were Guruji’s rarely demonstrated “signs and wonders” [John 4:48] that motivated me to receive his shaktipat initiation. Soon thereafter at Guruji’s request, I drove him and his designated successor, Shri Anandi Ma, for an unforgettable sight seeing trip from Oakland to San Francisco to see Grace Cathedral and Saint Mary’s Cathedral.

En route as we passed the high-rise building, where my law office was on the 21st floor, I exclaimed spontaneously: “Guruji, my office is at the top of that building”. “Very good,” he responded. And we drove on. The next morning, my twenty first floor air conditioned office was completely suffused with the ambrosial fragrance of roses. But, its windows were sealed, and there were no roses in the entire law office suite. So afterwards I questioned Shri Anandi Ma about the rose fragrance. Smilingly she replied: “Oh, that’s Guruji’s calling card, when he makes astral visits”. So, how did that astral visit happen? It’s still a “miracle” beyond scientific proof.

3) During Guruj’s last months in the USA (in 1980-81), he affirmed to me his yogic ability to travel astrally at will. He told me: “Rasik, a yogi’s body is like a baby’s body. Your body is like a prison. I am like a jailer with the prison key. I come and go as I please.” But such astral traveling still remains a “miracle” beyond scientific proof.

4) In May 1992, after an unforgettable déjà vu pilgrimage to Italy to commune with Saint Francis of Assisi, I drove to the Southern Italy Adriatic town of San Giovanni Rotondo to pay my respects to Padre Pio, a famous stigmatist and Capuchin Franciscan Friar, known for his miraculous deeds, astral appearances, and for sometimes manifesting subtle fragrances of roses with violets.  While I prayed and meditated at his holy tomb, I was unforgettably suffused with those fragrances. Later, I had repeated experiences of flower fragrance ‘visits’ from Guruji and other mystics. Those flower fragrance manifestations are still “miracles” beyond scientific proof.

5) In May 1993, intuiting that our daughter Jessica has just arrived from India on a world tour (with her spiritual teacher, Ammachi,) Jessica’s mother Naomi opened her San Francisco front door to discover strewn on her front porch the mysterious appearance of many rose petals. Later, Ammachi sent Naomi a packet of similar rose petals, without revealing or claiming to be the source of this rose petal ‘miracle’.

Soon thereafter while reading “The Autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux: The Story of a Soul.” I was repeatedly reminded and thought of Jessica. Then I synchronistically discovered (at “Christ in the Desert” a remote New Mexico monastery) that during Therese’s brief life as a Carmelite nun she often threw rose petals; and that during her last illness she had announced:

“After my death I will let fall a shower of roses”.


Saint Therese of Lisieux,
“The Little Flower of Jesus”,
January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897


Since Therese’s passing many manifestations of rose petals and other posthumous “miracles” continue to be attributed to her. But Naomi’s rose petal manifestation “miracle”, remains an unsolved mystery beyond scientific proof.

Spiritual importance of seeing everyone and everything as divine and holy miracles beyond proof.

1) Every incarnate human is unique, with a unique “reality” “created” by his/her individual thoughts and behaviors. And we each have personal freedom to think and behave as we choose.

2) But our freely chosen thoughts and behaviors unavoidably subject us to the universal law of cause and effect; and thereby to karmically ‘reap as we sow’ either joy or suffering, depending whether we are lovingly kind, compassionate, and helpful or fearfully selfish, hedonistic and harmful.

3) If we always choose, to live with love beyond fear or proof; to perceive only Divine spirit or God; and to see that everything is a Holy miracle – we gradually create states of consciousness beyond karmic suffering and we ‘reap’ increasingly joyous lives. Ultimately we are destined to awaken from this dream-like relative “reality” to BE the eternal mystery of Divinity as LOVE.

Dedication of Choosing To Live A Miraculous and Holy Life

This memoirs chapter is deeply dedicated to elevating our ever evolving earthly “reality” by encouraging a “critical mass” of Humankind to choose living with loving, kind, compassionate, and helpful thoughts and behaviors.

May it inspire us to always remember that we have freedom of choice to perceive only Divine spirit or God – to see that everything is a Holy miracle – with love beyond fear or proof, until we ultimately awaken from this dream-like relative “reality” to BE the eternal mystery of Divinity – as LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


My Miraculous Lotus Flower
~ Ron’s Memoirs


“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”

~ George Orwell, “1984”

“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.”

~ Albert Einstein

“Objective reality does not exist” ….

“The universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”

~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist and Einstein protege

“Perception is a mirror, not a fact.

And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”

~ A Course In Miracles (ACIM)

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.”
~ Niels Bohr, quantum physicist

“I regard consciousness as fundamental.
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist

“We do not see things as they are;

we see things as we are.”

~ Talmud

“Whatever we think, do, or say,

changes this world in some way.”

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings


Ron Rattner on June 7, 2022, with Miraculous Lotus Flower


Introduction to “My Miraculous Lotus Flower”

Dear Friends,

Today I’m privileged to share with you a recent true memoirs story, symbolizing the fundamental spiritual principle that every incarnate space/time human is unique, with a unique “reality” which we “create” with our thoughts and behaviors. And that to evolve we need to be ever open to new ‘realities’ which transcend our prior beliefs. Hence human societies could not have advanced if we inflexibly believed that the earth was flat, or was the center of our solar system.

My evolving “reality” history

Since my mid-life spiritual awakening, I’ve realized that many prior beliefs and paradigms about “reality” were fundamentally mistaken and limiting; requiring acceptance of never previously imagined new “realities” through open minded questioning and mindfulness, crucial for life-long learning and spiritual evolution.

Thus since 1976, I’ve learned (from mystic masters, quantum science, and out of body experiences) that we each ‘create’ an illusionary space/time “reality” through “an optical illusion of consciousness” with our unique thoughts, words, and behaviors – whereby we mistakenly perceive, project, and self-identify ourselves as supposedly mortal entities separate from each other, Nature, our precious planet, and from our ultimately inseparable Universal essence as infinite LOVE. (See e.g. Our Mentality is Our Reality)

Also, I’ve learned that in this illusionary space/time reality everything is energy [e=Mc2] appearing and disappearing within Universal consciousness. But most humans mistakenly identify only with their thoughts, instead of their consciousness of those thoughts, and don’t realize that cosmically we are merely energy vortices ‘disguised as persons’. However, as we elevate our energies beyond polarizing fears and negative emotions and radiate innate common love and compassion, we gradually transcend space/time sufferings and reap ever increasing karmic rewards, as ‘givers not getters’. And (as in the following memoirs story) those rewards often appear through amazing synchronicities.

My Miraculous Lotus Flower

This miraculous lotus flower story exemplifies my still continuing life-long “reality” realization process:

In December 2017 my former neighbor Simran Alden (a real estate broker, raised in India before emigrating to the US) left a colored flower at my front door taped to an envelope with information about year-end real estate taxes. Because of color blindness, presbyopia, and other age-related visual limitations I couldn’t discern the flower’s botanical identity or color, nor could I see it clearly. It appeared to me to be a very “real” but dried-out cut flower. So to revive and preserve it’s beauty for a few days, I carefully put it into a tube of fresh tap water.

On awakening the next day I saw a beautifully opened flower, which I assumed would soon fade and wither with age. But miraculously it stayed “alive” and beautiful. And I soon believed that the “real” flower was forming roots on seeing as organic material in the water tube.

So I regularly refilled the tube with filtered water (rather than tap water), and delightedly observed my miraculously blooming “real” flower, which I kept in prominent view on my dining room table.

When Simran Alden later phoned me about my condominium’s market value, I thanked her for the flower she’d given me in December, and told her that I was still enjoying its beauty. However, I don’t remember telling her that I believed it to be “real” and had been watering it regularly. Afterwards I emailed Simran a photo of me enjoying the flower. And I enjoyed and carefully watered my miraculous “real” flower for over four more years.

But that suddenly stopped in June 2022.

At the beginning of June, 2022, my 2008 large screen iMac, running a long outdated OS 10.9 operating system irreparably stopped working. The old iMac contained all of my essential digital data, and was not separately backed-up. So I urgently needed to save its data and replace it with another iMac which would still run OS 10.9; or I’d be involuntarily ‘retired’ as an online spiritual philosopher, sponsored by The Perennial Wisdom Foundation.

Thanks to Divine grace and many amazing synchronicities, I’m “back in business” as a spiritual philosopher, and still able to compose spiritual memoirs.

Here is what happened:

On the June 1st ‘death’ of my iMac, I immediately contacted my almost 93 year old long-time friend and computer ‘guru’, “KJ”, about my urgent dilemma. With compassion “KJ” began expertly guiding my replacement of the 2008 iMac with a late 2012 model that would still run OS 10.9. Also he instructed my daughter Jessica about finding a successor iMac on Craig’s List. Jessica successfully found a replacement iMac, and on June 7th she brought it to my apartment. It still needed to be carefully converted to run my OS 10.9 data. And (with “KJ’s” expert assistance) that finally happened on June 23, 2022. The next night “KJ” passed peacefully in his sleep. If “KJ” had departed on June 1st instead of June 24th, I couldn’t be sharing this memoirs story with you.

Jessica’s lotus “reality” revelation

On arriving at my apartment on June 7, 2022 with the 2012 replacement iMac, my dear daughter Jessica Eve Rattner, (now a prize-winning documentary photographer and UC Davis Master of Fine Arts, with keen color and visual perception) iconoclastically shattered my miraculous flower “reality” image. Looking at the flower, she immediately perceived and impishly revealed to me that the tubed bloom was an not an organically botanical flower, but a cotton woven and fabricated pink lotus.

Ron Rattner on June 7, 2022, after learning Jessica’s lotus flower “reality”


As Simran probably knew, the pink lotus is the official National Flower of India, and is prominent in ancient India’s history, art, and teachings. It has long been an extremely sacred symbol of the spiritual path, enlightenment and resurrection.

So I now view the flower as an auspicious synchronistic blessing, but Jessica’s “reality” revelation has compelled me to stop believing it miraculous.

Dedication of “My Miraculous Lotus Flower”

May this lotus flower story auspiciously symbolize the infinite potential blessings of our ever evolving earthly “reality”, which we “create” with our ever changing thoughts and behaviors.

May it remind us to always be open to new ‘realities’ which transcend our prior beliefs, until we ultimately transcend all incarnate “reality”.

Until then may we ever BE kind and compassionate, and pray:

“Infuse us, enthuse us, and use us, to bless all life as Love!”

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Discovering Sri Ramakrishna’s Teachings About God in All Beings ~ Ron’s Memoirs

“You should love everyone because God dwells in all beings.”

“Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

“One day, it was suddenly revealed to me that everything is pure spirit.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

“I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

“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.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

You may try thousands of times, but nothing can be achieved without God’s grace. One cannot see God without His grace. Is it an easy thing to receive grace? One must altogether renounce egotism; one cannot see God as long as one feels, ‘I am the doer.’

~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

“A man cannot live on the roof a long time. He comes down again. Those who realize Brahman in samadhi come down also and find that it is Brahman that has become the universe and its living beings. . . . The ego does not vanish altogether. The man coming down from samadhi perceives that it is Brahman that has become the ego, the universe, and all living beings. This is known as vijnana.”

~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa


Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
February 18, 1836 – August 16, 1886



Introduction to Sri Ramakrishna’s Teachings About God in All Beings

Dear Friends,

This memoirs posting includes explanations and quotations demonstrating how Sri Ramakrishna’s timeless teachings about God in all beings, philosophically and pragmatically augmented and transcended ancient non-dualism ego teachings of Buddhism and Taoism.

It supplements prior general postings which explain how the ego–mind’s illusion of separation from non-dual spiritual Source causes inevitable karmic suffering. It is also related to recent memoirs postings about Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings that explain (with quotation collections) his key general teachings, and his specific teachings that God (as sole Doer or cause) can be seen in all manifestation. (See: “Sri Ramakrishna’s Timeless Wisdom”; “Seeing God”; and “Transcending Ego-Suffering.”)

My Background

In other memoirs postings I’ve told how at age 76 my quest for meaning of a transformative out-of-body [OOB] experience was rewarded with an extraordinary spiritual re-awakening and rebirth which began a profound spiritual evolution process, with previously unimagined discoveries which are still unfolding at almost age ninety.

I’ve recounted that, as as secular Hebrew litigation lawyer, in 1978 I met my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, a hundred year old self-realized Hindu holy man; and that I became a devotional “born-again Hindu” after receiving his shaktipat initiation, which created our inseparable causal connection through which he has ever since guided me spiritually.

After initiation I learned that Guruji’s Self-Realization had been prophesied and encouraged by his rare inner vision of Swami Vivekananda, the designated successor of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, nineteenth century Hindu sage and Avatar. Though as an itinerant yogi, Guruji had read very few spiritual texts or scriptures, he was greatly inspired by Swami Vivekananda’s Raj Yoga book and writings about Patanjeli’s Yoga Sutras, which Guruji recommended.

Upon learning of those teachings I too became extremely inspired by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Swami Vivekananda’s Vedanta teachings, which have helped me more than any other written spiritual teachings. Accordingly, in prior memoirs chapters I have told generally about discovering those timeless teachings, and about Sri Ramakrisha’s “Seeing God” in all beings.

And in “Discovering The Inner Spirit Of ’76” I’ve recently concluded that it’s crucially important for us to always emanate energies of Divine Light and LOVE, because the energy of Divine Love always prevails over fearful energy, which can be “our greatest inner enemy”.

Spiritual Evolution Advancement

The following memoirs chapter explains how Sri Ramakrishna’s Teachings About God in All Beings have advanced our spiritual evolution process by helping us realize and remember that – even in this illusory 3D space/time world of samsara or maya (where some separate ego-identity is inevitable and unavoidable) – we only perceive Divine spirit or God. Such remembrance that everything is Holy helps us serve as crucially important instruments of Divine Light and LOVE, which always prevails over fear.

Ancient Eastern non-dualism teachings of Advaita-Vedanta Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism all identify (as humanity’s spiritual goal) Self-Realization through a deep state consciousness dissolving ego-mind illusion of separation from ONE Spiritual Source. They are our most evolved and elevated spiritual philosophies.

These Eastern philosophies (which I have accepted) all recognize “ego” as the greatest impediment to Self-Realization, and define it as illusory mental separation from non-dual Ultimate Reality. Only in the past century has ancient non-duality philosophy been scientifically validated by Albert Einstein’s revolutionary relativity realization, that everything is energy (e=mc²), so that:

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”;
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness”; and
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”.


Although all Eastern non-dualists broadly agree about the dangers of “ego”, there are subtle philosophical differences between them, which are unknown and unintelligible for most common people. However the doctrinal differences between Hindu and Buddhist non-dualists may soon prove pragmatically important because of Sri Ramakrishna’s revelations that incarnate ego is unavoidable, even after Self-Realization of God.

Buddhism doesn’t conceive or believe in a Creator God, and influential non-dualist Buddhists view “Emptiness” or “Voidness” as Source, whereas Hinduism identifies a universal Divine Reality called Brahman. Thus, Buddhism regards as unreal what Sri Ramakrishna (a Hindu) Self-Realized and saw as omnipresent and infinite Divine universal spirit.

Differences between Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings about persistence of ego, even after seeing God, and core Buddhist teachings about realization of “Emptiness” or “Voidness” (Sunyata) can help many creationist spiritual aspirants who conceive of one “God”, but not “emptiness”, as our sole spiritual Source. Such aspirants can readily understand and aspire to Self-Realization of God, but not to realization of “Emptiness”, as their spiritual goal.

Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings about persistence of ego

In deepest meditation (nirvikalpa samādhi) Sri Ramakrishna’s ego-mind individuality dissolved and merged thoughtlessly and formlessly with universal Divine Reality – Brahman. Thereafter, on returning to individual bodily consciousness from this state of Self-Realization (moksha), he taught that God (as sole Doer or cause) can be seen in all manifestation. Sri Ramakrisha could have remained eternally merged with the Divine. But he elected to return to his mortal body to help humanity realize our timeless Divinity, beyond inevitable suffering from deceptive ego-mind illusions of being separate from ONE God.

Although Sri Ramakrisha realized that ego dissolves in nirvikalpa samādhi, he also realized that as long as humans choose to physically incarnate some ego-identity is inevitable and unavoidable.


“The ego cannot be done away with. As long as ‘I-consciousness’ exists, living beings and the universe must also exist.
After realizing God, one sees that, it is He Himself
who has become the universe and the living beings.”

“The ego does not vanish altogether.
The man coming down from samādhi perceives that
it is Brahman that has become the ego, the universe, and all living beings.”

~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

Helpful and Harmful Ego Energies

So he taught that egos can be either harmful or helpful:

That when we devote our precious human lives to serving others our egos are helpful; but that they are harmful when we are fearful, materialistic, or hedonistic. (Eg. see Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6:05-6)

Thus Sri Ramakrisha demonstrated and taught the desirability of maintaining a helpful ego of service or devotion to God in our worldly activities. Those teachings of dedicating our lives to God, may be more important now than ever before (during the unprecedented current violent post-pandemic “new reality” era) because countless humans worldwide are now awakening from eons of harmful illusionary ego self-identification and limitation to higher energy levels of consciousness, beyond fears of death or deprivation as supposedly threatened mortal and limited life-forms.

Until now, such fearful ego-mind energies have psychologically ‘imprisoned’ us in illusionary energetically lower consciousness dimensions where we’ve suffered for eons. But a “critical mass” of humankind are rapidly awakening from those fearful illusions to elevated loving and compassionate levels of awareness, beyond such suffering. Thus we are remembering and realizing the crucial importance of compassionately caring for one-another and all of Nature’s life-forms. 

And as fearless servants and instruments of Divine LOVE we are invariably destined to ultimately enjoy our innate God-given freedom from all inner-ego oppression.

And so shall it be!

Dedication

This memoirs posting is dedicated to hastening that inevitable transformation when we shall melt and merge into ONE Universal Awareness – as Divine LOVE.

Until then may we ever BE ‘givers not getters’, and pray:

“Infuse us, enthuse us, and use us, to bless all life as Love!”

And so shall it be!

Ron Rattner

Synchronistically Discovering The Inner Spirit Of ’76, at Age Seventy Six, in 1976
~ Ron’s Memoirs


“The ego cannot be done away with. As long as ‘I-consciousness’ exists, living beings and the universe must also exist.
After realizing God, one sees that, it is He Himself
who has become the universe and the living beings.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

“The ego does not vanish altogether. The man coming down from samādhi perceives that it is Brahman that has become the ego, the universe, and all living beings.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

“All paths ultimately lead to the same Truth. But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

“The ego cannot begot rid of; so let the rascal remain as the servant of God, the devotee of God.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa




Introduction

Dear Friends,

As Americans commemorate our founding fathers’ July 4th, 1776, declaration of political independence from tyrannical British rule, this memoirs chapter tells how at age 76, in 1976, I synchronistically discovered a profound inner ‘Spirit of ’76’ evolution process (still unfolding at almost age ninety) revealing how we shall transcend previously unimagined fearful ego-mind obstacles to enjoyment of a god-given happy life.

Synchronistically Discovering The Inner Spirit Of ’76 at Age Seventy Six in 1976

On New Year’s Eve 1974-5 I was blessed with a transformative out-of-body experience (OOB), which impelled my relentless investigation of its profound meaning. Until then, like most Westerners, I self-identified only with my mortal physical body, its thoughts and story, and assumed that inevitable bodily death would forever end my life.

However in spring 1976, at age seventy six my quest for meaning of that OOB was suddenly rewarded by an extraordinary and spontaneous aha spiritual rebirth and re-awakening experience, which forever changed my Self-identity and reality paradigms. And it began a profound spiritual-evolution process, revealing previously unimagined and continuing discoveries which are still unfolding at almost age ninety.

Synchronistically my spiritual awakening at age 76 happened during the auspicious 1976 bicentennial commemorations of the 1776 American Declaration of Independence which widely celebrated “The Spirit Of ’76” .

Spirit Of ’76 Background


On July 4, 1776, thirteen American colonies declared their independence from British royal rule, in an historic document inspired by Thomas Paine’s Quaker philosophy and written by Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence morally proclaimed that under “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” government is established by people to secure their “Life, Liberty and . . pursuit of Happiness”, and is to be overthrown as illegitimate if it no longer does that.

Thomas Jefferson who authored the Declaration of Independence later explained that its principles

“promised to lead America—and other nations on the globe—into a new era of freedom. The revolution begun by Americans on July 4, 1776, would never end. It would inspire all peoples living under the burden of oppression and ignorance to open their eyes to the rights of mankind, to overturn the power of tyrants, and to declare the triumph of equality over inequality.”

Thus the Declaration unequivocally affirmed the inherent god-given human right to “Life, Liberty, and Happiness”. Though it emphasized outer liberty from immoral and inequitable political oppression, it’s spiritual philosophy also includes perpetual freedom from inner oppression, because (as Thomas Payne revealed) “our greatest enemies . . . are within.”

My Inner Spirit Of ’76 Discoveries

Synchronistically, at age 76 in 1976 I began discovering within that:

1) Spiritually we are not mere separate mortal physical bodies but ONE immortal and universal consciousness. Our mortal physical bodies are only impermanent energy vehicles with which we explore earth’s dense 3D environment. But because we are eternal consciousness we never die, just replace our temporary ‘space/time soul suits’ with new models.

2) Planet Earth’s space/time relative “reality” isn’t really real, but an energetic optical illusion of universal consciousness – like a dream or mental mirage, which Eastern religions call samsara or maya.

3) In space/time everything is energy [e=Mc2] appearing and disappearing within universal consciousness. But most humans mistakenly identify only with their thoughts, instead of their consciousness of those thoughts, and don’t realize that in Reality we are consciousness disguised as persons.

4) Because we mistakenly think that we’re only individual persons or entities separate from each other and Nature, we ‘create’ an illusory reality with our ever changing thoughts, words and behaviors.

5) Our self-identification with thought is ego. Ego-mind ideas about supposed separate self-identity and reality inescapably subject us to to the karmic law of cause and effect, whereby “every action, every thought, reaps its own corresponding rewards” – either joy or suffering. Thus ego-mind self-identification metaphorically confines us in psychological prisons in which suffering is inevitable, and which restrict realization of our infinite potentialities.  

6) As long as humans choose to physically incarnate on Earth some separate ego-identity is inevitable and unavoidable.

7) Such Earthly ego-identity can be either harmful or helpful:
Egos are harmful when they are fearful, selfish, materialistic, or hedonistic; but when we fearlessly devote our precious human lives to serving others our egos are helpful. (Eg. see Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6:05-6)

8) Maintaining a helpful ego of service or devotion to God in our chosen worldly activities is highly desirable. Helpful ego-minds quicken our transcendence from cause and effect earthly sufferings; but harmful ego-minds prolong such sufferings.

9) Thus, I’ve discovered (in the Spirit of ’76) that harmful and fearful inner ego-minds can be “our greatest enemies” by preventing our realization and enjoyment of innate human freedom from inner oppression. However, the energy frequency of LOVE always eradicates and dissipates fear as an assured antidote to fearful ego-minds.

10) So as fearless servants and instruments of Divine LOVE we are invariably destined to ultimately enjoy our innate God-given freedom from all inner-ego oppression.

And so shall it be!

Conclusion, dedication, and invocation

The energy of Divine LOVE always prevails over fearful energy. So as instruments and servants of God, we will invariably evolve human consciousness –beyond our mistakenly perceived separation from each other– by fearlessly realizing and actualizing our common Oneness with all Life as LOVE.

This memoirs posting is dedicated to hastening that transformation until we have merged and melted into ONE Universal Awareness – as Divine LOVE.

Thus may we always BE and pray:

Infuse us, enthuse us, and use us, to gratefully bless all life as Love!”

And so shall it be!

Ron Rattner